I 200 E^s a Year 

$ Per Hen: 

t How to Get Them. 



»i> EDGAR. WARREfi. 




Price, 50 Cents. 



Syracuse. N. Y. 
Clarence C. De Puy, 

Publisher. 
1905. 






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FIFTH EDITION 



200 Eggs a Year Per Hen: 
How to Get Them. 



A Practical Treatise 

on 

Egg Making and Its Conditions 

and 

Profits in Poultry. 



By EDGAR WARREN. 



Price, 50 Cents. 



Syracuse, N. Y. 

CLARENCE C. De PUY, 

Publisher. 

1905. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
fwo Copies Kec.il veil 

APR 3 1905 
oovngni two 



A*/<r*r- 




COPYRIGHT 1899, 1900. 1902. 

By EDGAR L. WARREN. 



COPYRIGHT 1903 



By CLARENCE C. De PUY. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Two Hundred Egg Hen. 



We hear a good deal said in these days about the 200 egg hen. 
Some are disposed to deny her existence, and to class her with such 
fabulous or semi-i'abulous birds as the phoenix and dodo. Others 
admit that she has appeared in isolated instances, but is by no 
means common. Others contend tha/t if she should appear in large 
numbers it would be a misfortune rather than otherwise, for such 
excessive egg production would weaken her system so that her eggs 
would not hatch healthy and vigorous chicks; and the 200 egg hen 
would be in constant danger of extinction from her own success. 

One thing is certain, however, the 200 egg hen is no myth. 
There are many of them scattered about, and the tribe is on the 
increase. My reputation for truth and veracity is reasonably good; 
yet I am willing to make oath that I had a flock of 14 White Wyan- 
dottes that from October to October gave me a total of 2,999 eggs, 
an average of a little better than 214 eggs apiece. There are others 
who can beat this. Men are already talking of the 250 egg hen, 
and before we realize it she will be here. 

1 do not see how a man can draw an arbitrary line, and say how 
many eggs a hen may or may not lay in a year. The hen in her 
wild state lays from six to ten; the average farmer's hen not over 
100; while on egg farm? the average is raised to 150. But why 
stop here? There are 3G5 days in a year; and I do not see why a 
pullet that is fully matured, that comes from an egg producing 
strain, that is properly fed and cared for and kept steadily at work, 
may not lay at least 200 eggs in that time. 

J am prepared to admit that a hen will uot lay 200 eggs a year 
without constant and intelligent care. 1 am also prepared to admit 
that in some cases the number of eggs extra a hen will lay where 
she has this constant and intelligent care will not pay for the time 
consumed, and that it may be more profitable to get an average of 
say 150 eggs a year than a larger number. But I believe that in 
the poultry business, as in every other, it is well to have a high 
ideal. The man who inscribes on his banner, "Two Hundred Eggs 
a Year Per Hen,*' and then comes as near it as he can, will make 
more money and have more fun than will the man who is content 
to take what comes along. 



THE HEREDITY OF THE TWO HUNDRED EGG HEN. 

"When I was a boy a mile in 2:40 was regarded as a great per- 
formance for a trotting horse. There were horses that had trotted 
r.nder 2:40, ranch under, but they were few. I remember it was 
the custom for us urchins to cry out whenever a man drove by at 
a slashing gait, "Go it, two-forty!" I am not an old man yet by 
any means — my wife tells me that I am young — but 1 have lived 
to see the trotting record come down and down until it has dropped 
below the two minute mark. A horse that cannot trot in less than 
2:40 is regarded as a good horse for a woman to drive, but out of 
place on the track. 

AVhat has brought the record down and down until men are 
looking for the two minute horse? Heredity and handling! A 
trotting horse now has a pedigree as long as a European monarch. 
The blood of generations of trotters flows in his veins. It may be 
the ancestral lines converge in the great Messenger himself. 

Heredity and handling! These two things are as necessary for 
the 200 egg hen as for the two minute horse. Men do not gather 
grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. The 200 egg hen must 
be bred to lay. She must come from an egg-producing strain. No 
matter how scientifically a man may feed or how hygienically he 
may house, he cannot take a flock of hens of any old breed or no 
breed and get 200 eggs a year apiece from them. It is impossible. 
By carefully following the instructions of this book he can largely 
increase the egg yield of such, a flock, but he must not expect to 
get 200 eggs a year apiece. I cannot impress it too strongly upon 
the reader's mind that if he expects to get 200 eggs a yv,)r apiece 
from his hens he must start in with a great laying strain. 

WHAT BREED IS BEST? 

There is an old Latin proverb, De gustibus non est disputandum 
which 1 will take the liberty to translate for the benefit of those 
who have been out of school for some time. Its meaning is this: 
In matters of taste there is no argument. This is as true in the 
poultry business as it is elsewhere. Other things being equal that 
breed is the best for a man which he likes best. There is no breed 
that combines all the excellences and has none of the defects. 
There is no breed that does not have its admirers. In general it 
may be said that the most profitable breeds are to be found m the 
Asiatic, American and Mediterranean classes, as follows: In the 
Asiatic class the Light Brahmas. Black Langshans, Buff and Part- 



ridge Cochins: in the American class the Barred, Buff and White 
Plymouth Bocks, all the Wyandottes and the Rhode Island Reds; 
in the Mediterranean class the Black Minorcas, Brown, White and 
Buff Leghorns. These are the great money-making varieties. The 
Asiatics are excellent table fowls and prolific layers of dark brown 
eggs. They are good sitteis and mothers, although, somewhat 
clumsy-. They are inclined to be sluggish and readily take on fat. 
They stand cold well, and make good winter layers. The Mediter- 
raneans are egg machines, turning out great quantities of white- 
shelled eggs. They do not stand cold as well as the Asiatic and 
American breeds, and are not as good fowls for the table. The 
Americans on the whole are the favorites. They are all-round 
birds, good layers of brown eggs, excellent for the table, good sitters 
and mothers. They stand cold well, and are the birds for farmers 
and breeders. The danger with every breed is that it will get into 
the hands of the fanciers and be bred for points rather than for 
utility. Stamina is the important thing, and not the show card. 
It will be a great day for the poultry business when farmers keep 
more pure-bred fowls, for then the great standard varieties may be 
kept np without danger of deterioration. 

HOW MANY VARIETIES SHALL I KEEP? 

After studying the matter carefully, I have come to the conclu- 
sion that it is better for the average poultryman to confine himself 
to one variety. He will get better results and make more money 
if he concentrates his energies than he will if he dissipates them. 
After a man has made a success with one variety he may perhaps 
add another, and even a third; but the best poultrymen do not 
handle many varieties, and some of the most successful confine 
themselves to one. Where several varieties are kept I would sug- 
gest that there be some principle of unity determining the choice. 
Let the birds all be of one color — say white, black or buff — or let 
them all be of one family, like the Leghorns, Wyandottes or Ply- 
mouth Rocks. Where the fowls are all of one family they will have 
the same characteristics and respond to the same treatment. In 
case of an accidental mix-up the damage is reduced to a minimum, 
for the birds are all of the same size, comb and contour. 

HOW MANY RECORDS ARE WRECKED. 

Some time ago I received a letter from a young lady who is an 
enthusiastic poultrywoman, in which she said that she was getting 



a goodly number of eggs, but that her record was lowered because 
she had kept over half a dozen hens which had laid well the year 
before. She said that she knew better, but could not resist the 
temptation. 1 mention this case because it is so typical. More 
egg records are wrecked by keeping old hens in the flock than in 
any other way! There is always a temptation when a hen lias laid 
well to keep her the second year. This temptation must he re- 
sisted if one is in quest of a big egg record. The fad that a Inn 
has laid well for one year since coming to maturity incapacitates 
her from ever laying so well again. She has drained her system. 
and requires recuperation before she can lay even moderately. You 
may set it down as an axiom that it is the pullets that give the big 
egg records. If you have in your flock some hens that you desire 
to keep a second year as a reward for past services, or for breeders 
and mothers, put them in a pen by themselves and do not look for 
more than a moderate egg production from them. It is the pullets 
that lay, and the early-hatched pullets at that. Get out your 
chickens in March, April or May, according to the breed, if you 
want winter layers. 

WEED ( )TJT THE NON-LAYERS. 
Reports from the Maine Experiment Station, where trap nests 
are used and individual records kept, show that among hens of the 
same breed and kept under the same condition- there is a great dif- 
ference in egg production. One Barred Plymouth. Rock laid 251 
eggs in one year, while another in the same flock laid hut eight. A 
White Wyandotte pullet laid 319 eggs, while another of the same 
breed laid absolutely none. These figures are most, significant, 
showing as they do the absolute necessity of weeding out the non- 
producers. Suppose you have two hens in a pen, and one lavs 200 
eggs a year and the other none. The average for the two is 100 
eggs apiece. In other words, the non-layer has reduced the pen 
record one-half. It costs a dollar a year to feed a hen. and this 
money is thrown away if the hen does not lay. The one absolutely 
sure way of identifying the layers and non-layers is by the use of 
the trap nest; but this takes time, and many do not feel that it 
pays. Still without the use of the trap nest, by keeping one's eyes 
and ears open, one can pick out the layers with sufficient accuracy 
for all practical purposes, as I shall show before I get through. 

THE THREE CONDITIONS OF EGG PRODUCTION. 

It was a maxim of Lord Bacon, one of the greatest men that 
ever lived, that Nature is the great teacher, and that in order to 



learn we must interrogate Nature. If we study Nature with open 
eyes she will often give us suggestions of great value and fruitful- 
ness. The poultryman must continually go to Nature, the great 
teacher, and he will not go in vain. In the state of Nature in 
which wild fowls live, or in the state of semi-Nature in which the 
farmer's fowls are kept, what is the season of egg production? 
Summer. Why? Because in summer the conditions of egg pro- 
duction are present. What are these conditions? Warmth, proper 
food and exercise. Reproduce these conditions at any season of 
the year and the fowl will be likely to lay. The poultryman should 
keep this fact in mind and govern himself accordingly. 

IS THERE AN EGG TYPE? 

Before 1 pass to the next chapter 1 wish to take up a subject 
upon which there is a wide difference of opinion — Is there an egg 
type? Some of those who ought to know claim there is not. But 
I am of the opinion that as there is a type of cow that we associate 
with large production of milk, so there is a type of hen that we may 
associate with large production of eggs. 1 believe that a hen with 
a broad breast, a long, deep body and straight underline (the so- 
called "wedge-shape" fowl) will lay better than one with a narrow 
breast, a short body and curved underline. The reason is not far 
to seek. The vital organs are confined within the body, and in a 
hen with a broad breast and long, deep body there is plenty of 
room for the organs of assimilation and reproduction; while in a 
hen with a short, curved body these organs are necessarily con- 
stricted. If a hen is to lay well she must eat well, breathe well, and 
have large ovaries; in other words there must be plenty of room 
inside for all the great organs to perform their functions. This 
explains why there is a tendency on the part of the egg-producing 
breeds to increase in size. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Home of the Two Hundred Egg Men. 



Much of a man's success or failure in the poultry business will 
depend upon the location and construction of his plant. Where 
hens are kept in small numbers and given free range, they do well 
almost anywhere; hut where they are kept in large numbers and in 
confinement, they must have as favorable conditions as possible or 
they will prove a source of loss and not of profit to their owner. 

The best location for a poultry plant is on sandy soil, where 
there is a gentle slope to the south or southeast. If there is a wind- 
break of some kind on the north and northwest the location becomes 
ideal. Such a location, however, is hard to find — nor is it indis- 
pensable. Poultry can be kept on almost any soil, provided it is 
not saturated with water for a considerable portion of the year. 
Even a clay soil has its advantages; it produces a luxuriant growth 
of grass which not only provides the fowls with forage, but which 
also by its roots takes up the excrement which otherwise might 
contaminate the ground. 

Before the poultryman drives a nail or does a stroke of work he 
should carefully consider the possibilities of his situation, and lay 
out his prospective plant in his mind. If he is to build largely at 
once it might pay him to consult an exnert. But if he is to build 
only one small house, he should build it with reference to others 
that he may put up in future years. So I say, have a plan. The 
details may be filled in at the poultryman's convenience — or they 
may never be filled in. But if the man lives and his business 
grows the time will come when he will thank his stars that he was 
wise and far-seeing enough to have a plan at the very start, and 
not have to waste time and money moving buildings about or in 
tearing them down and replacing them with others. 

THE COLONY PLAN. 

There are three methods of keeping hens in large numbers. 
The first of these is the colony plan. The principle of the colony 
plan is that of keeping hens in small segregated houses — twenty- 
five to fifty hens in a house. These houses are scattered at regular 
intervals over the farm, and are visited two or three times a day 



by mi attendant. The hens are given fiee range. It has been 
found that when houses arc one hundred yards apart, or even less, 
flocks will not mingle, Imt each flock will keep in the neighbor- 
hood of its own house. This plan has its advantages. It is inex- 
pensive. The houses may be of the cheapest kind. No yards arc 
required. The hens at certain seasons of the year pick up a good 




Colony house to accommodate from 12 to 25 fowls. This house is eight feet square on the 
ground, and eight feet from floor to apex of roof. There is no frame, hut the roof boards are 
nailed to the ridgepole and to plankbase boards. 

deal of their living. If the houses are located in an orchard the 
liens fertilize the ground around the trees and eat the wormy fruit. 
No dangerous disease is likely to break out among hens kept in 
colonies. But on the other hand the plan has serious drawbacks. 
Even in pleasant weather it requires a good deal of time each day 
to visit the scattered flocks; but in winter, when a blizzard is raging, 
to make the rounds of the houses is an experience calculated to 
make one appreciate the perils and hardships of a Polar expedition. 
Then, too, these isolated, detached houses are shining marks for 
tlneves; and unless the neighborhood is exceptionally honest, the 
poultryman may wake up some morning to discover that two or 
three hundred of his fowls have vanished. 

THE COMMUNITY PLAN. 

The second method of keeping hens in large numbers is what I 
may call the community plan, and is sufficiently described by the 







name. The majority of large poultry plants in the country are 
constructed on this plan. The great argument in favor of this 
plan is economy — economy in labor, economy in land. The orig 
inal cost of a plant on the community plan is somewhat greater 
than the cost of a plant on the colony plan; but when the plant is 
erected and equipped the saving begins. There are. however, some 
objections to this plan besides the initial cost. It lias been found 
very difficult to keep the houses perfectly dry, where the length 
exceeds sixty feet. Moisture collects on the walls and roof, and 
in cold weather congeals, so that in these long houses there is often 
a coating of frost. In cleaning out the long house- it is somewhat 
difficult to reach the central compartments, requiring a- it does a 
long walk and the opening and shutting of many doors and gates. 
"Where a virulent disease like cholera or roup breaks out in one 
compartment, as it sometimes will, it has been found almost iiu|><>-- 
sible to confine it to that compartment — germs traveling in the air, 
or being conveyed from one pen to another in excrement which 
may stick to the feet. With the community plan go long, narrow- 
yards or parks, which can be fenced only at considerable cost. 

The scratching shed has now become an integral part of many 
of the long houses. The scratching shed, as its name implies, is a 
place tor exercise under the same roof with the laving room, but 
more open to the weather. The scratching shed has many enthu- 
siastic advocates Avho claim that it is indispensible to the health and 
comfort of the fowls in the winter, and will more than pay for it- 
self in an increased egg output. The claims for the scratching 
shed house seem so valid that if I were building a house more than 
sixty feet in length, I should certainly add scratching shed<. 

It is impossible in an article like this to give a plan for a house 
that will suit every purse and every place. 1 can only submit a 
cut of what I consider the best community house 1 have yet seen, 
and give a brief description of it. The house is on the Gardner 
Dunning Poultry Farm, of Auburn, N\ Y. 

The house shown in the foreground of the view is 180 feet long 
by 12 wide, and is divided into 10 sections, each 18 feet. Each sec- 
tion is in turn divided into a scratching shed of nine feet, and a 
laying and roosting room of the same length. The house is made 
of the best material, double boarded with paper between and ceiled 
overhead at the height of six feet. In each pen is a large window, 
a small ventilating window into the hallway and a ventilating hole- 



- E 



P ° 

T 2 




cut through the ceiling which draw- off the foul air but forms no 
draught. 

The scratching sheds are open m front, with a canvas which can 
be let down to keep the snow out. The yards are 150 feet long, 
with a row of fruit trees ill each, and are plowed and sowed each 
year. At present there are three of these long houses on the plant 
and more will he added as they are needed. 

THE MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION HOUSE. 

An important and in many ways desirable variation from tiie 
ordinary scratching shed house is the main poultry building in use 
at the Agricultural Experiment Station at Bozeman, Montana. 
'"The building is 72 feet long and 14 feet wide with a four-foot 
passage in the rear. It is divided into pens 12 feet long and 10 
feet wide, and is set upon a foundation of stone 18 inches wide and 
two feet high. The slope of the roof is for the main portion to the 
south, the ridge coming just above the passage way four feet from 
the rear wall. This slope of roof is of great advantage since the 
sun rapidly melts the snow on the southern incline, making it 
warmer and drier, while on the other side the slope is so steep that 
the snow does not lodge there. 

''The next most important feature is the double floor. The exit 
from the pens is through the floor into the space underneath the 
building. This basement has a ground floor, and it is two feet from 
the ground to the sills. In summer this makes a line, cool and 
shady place when doors shown in cut are down and portholes open, 
while in winter with the doors raised the low sun enables the sun- 
light to extend more than half of the distance from front to rear, 
making an ideal place for dusting and scratching. This feature 
adds greatly to the usefulness of the building, since it so materially 
increases the floor space without affecting the area of the roof." 

THE COLONY-COMMUNITY PLAN. 

The third method of keeping hens in large numbers is, so far 
as I know, original with me, and may be called the colony-com- 
munity plan. The plan in brief is this: To keep the hens in small 
detached houses built in streets and situated close to one another, 
with yards running to the rear instead of the front. 

It has always seemed to me a great mistake to run the yards 
to the front of a hen house instead of to the rear. There are in- 
numerable occasion- when the poultryman wishes to visit a pen in 



13 



a" ^ 

3 ~ 



C5 ~. 

g c 




14 



the middle of a long house, and in order to do so he must open 
and shut half a dozen doors to pass along an alley way for fifty or 
one hundred feet. When he wishes to remove the litter or shovel 
sand into the middle pens it is necessary to open and shut a number 
of gates before he can do so. But with the yards in the rear the 
poultryman can drive along the front of his house and reach the 
middle pen as easily as he can at the ends. 




Colony-community houses arranged in streets, with yards running to the rear. 



The houses that 1 use in the colony-community plan ait.' all 
alike, and are very simple in construction. Each house is 12 feet 
long, seven feet wide, seven feet high in front and five feet high 
in the rear; and is designed to accommodate 50 brooder chicks, 20 
head of laying stock, or a breeding pen of one male and 12 females. 

The house rests on cedar posts or old railroad ties put in the 
ground below the frost line and sawed off eight inches above the 
surface. There are six of these posts, three on each side, and where 
old railroad ties are used the whole cost of the foundation is 15 
cents. On these ties are laid two main sills and four cross sills, 
each 2x4 spruce. The plates are 2x4 stuff, but the other timbers 
in the frame — posts and rafters — are 2x3. 



15 



After the building is framed the floor is laid. This is double, 
-and between the upper and lower floor Neponset black sheathing is 
used. The covering to the frame is then put on, and over the 
boards Neponset black sheathing is tacked. This is to be covered 
with Neponset red paper. All the boards in the frame are hemlock. 

The roof is a very important part of a hen house. When the 
rafters are put on they are sawed oft' flush with the plate; and when 
the sides are boarded thie boards are brought up so that they cover 
the ends of the rafters and also the edge of the roofing boards, mak- 
ing an absolutely tighi joint. Neponset black sheathing is then laid 




Colony-community bouse designed to accommodate f>0 brooder chicks, 20 head of laying 
stock, or oue male and 12 females. 



over the roof boards, and a double course of shingles laid along the 
lcwer edge of the roof. The object of this course of shingles is to 
throw the water from the roof away from the house. The roof is 
then covered with Paroid, carefully put on and allowed to project 
a few inches at the ends. This flap will eventually be turned in 
and held in place by the finish. 

The house is supposed to face south. There are two windows, 
one on the south side and one on the east end. There is a door in 
front, and a panel in the rear which can be raised or lowered at will 



16 



to let the hens oui into the yard. After the house is finished all 
the outside woodwork receive? a coat of dark green paint, which 
forms an effective contrast with the brick-red of the Neponset 
paper. Indeed, all who see the house remark how neat and pretty 
it is. 

[NTEKIOK CONTRUCTION. 

The interior of the house is of the very simplest. I have 
learned from hard experience to have as little furniture in a hen 
house as possible, and that many of the things advertised as helps 
for poultrymen are really hindrances. The house, as I have -aid. 
faces the south. The roosts, instead of being in the rear, as is 
commonly the case, are in the west end, away from all possibility 
of draughts. The roost platform is two feet and a half above the 
floor, and is constructed of dry matched pine boards, which I get 
from old dry goods boxes. The platform, as soon as built, is cov- 
ered with a coat of hot tar. There are two roosts, or perches, 
parallel and on the same level. T forgot to say that the roost plat- 
form is three feet wide, which enables me to place my perches one 
foot apart, and one foot from the back wall and one foot from the 
edge of the platform. The perches are of spruce, 2x3, with the 
upper end slightly rounded, and set in sockets cut out of hoards. 
They are removable. The perches are also covered with hot tar, 
as are the sockets in which they are set. Red mites let my liouses 
severely alone. 

The materials used in the house are as follows: Hemlock 
boards, 500 feet; matched pine for doors, trimmings, etc., 60 feet: 
frame (board measure), 100 feet; windows, Neponset black sheath- 
ing, 250 feet; Neponset red rope. 250 feet; Paroid, 1<>(> feet; hard- 
ware, etc. The cost of such a house, exclusive of labor, in New 
Hampshire to-day would he not far from $20. Two men, working 
together, can complete the house in two days. Such a house always 
finds a ready sale, and if the owner wishes to move out of town or 
go out of the hen business at any time he can sell the house for 
about half what it cost him. 

In case a somewhat larger house is wanted, the dimensions may 
be enlarged as follows: Length, 14 feet: width. 8 feet; height in 
front, 7| feet; height in rear,5^ feet. This will preserve the pro- 
portions and give nearly one-half more floor space. 



17 



HOUSE MADE FROM PIANO BOXES. 

Possibly there are some who desire even a cheaper house than 
the ones I have described. It may be they expect to remain but a 
short time where they are, or wish a house for young stock, and do 
not care to invest even $20 in a building. To such I would say that 
a good temporary house can be made from two piano boxes at a 
cost of about $3. The simplest way to make such a house is as fol- 
lows: On a level place lay down two joists eight feet long. Take 




Three Dollar Poultry Houses. Good summer buildings, anil in a warm climate 
suitable for winter. 



the boxes and carefully remove the boards on the tallest side. 
Spike the boxes to the joists, so that the open ends will face each 
other. With the boards you have taken out close up the gap be- 
tween the boxes on the hack and roof. Put a door in front, a pane 
of glass on either side of the door, or two panes in the door itself, 
complete laying the floor, put in a roost, cover the building with 
good roofing paper, and you have a house that will accommodate a 
dozen hens at a trifling cost. 



CHAPTER III. 



Sanitation a* a factor in C<^<| Production. 



Sanitation is one of the most important factors in egg produc- 
tion. As blossom and fruit are the culmination of the tree's activ- 
ities, so the egg is the culmination of the activities of the hen. 
The hen cannot lay heavily unless she is in perfect physical condi- 
tion. One of the ways in which disease iirsl reveals itself is in the 
dropping off of the egg product. The poultryman who desire- the 
largest return from his investment must make a careful >\ui\\ of 
sanitation. 

A SANITARY HOUSE. 

The style of house a man builds will depend something upon 
his means and personal preferences. There are houses costing 
thousands of dollars, and there are houses built for less than a 
dollar a running foot. I have known hens to do well in houses 
made of piano boxes, costing, when completed, three dollars apiece. 
But whether the house is cheap or dear, elaborate or simple, it 
should have three characteristics: 

1. It must he dry. Dampness is fatal to fowls. Roup, rheu- 
matism and kindred evils go with a damp house. The house 
should always he built in ample season so that it may thoroughly 
be dried out before winter, and unless the around on which it 
stands is as dry as powder it should have a board floor. 

2. The house should be warm. Nature lias provided the hen 
with an ample covering of feathers, and she will not freeze even if 
the temperature falls far below zero. But under such conditions 
she will lay but few eggs. How can she? All her food goes toward 
making caloric, and there is no surplus for anything else. In a 
properly constructed house there is no need for any artificial 
heat. A house should be so built that in the coldest weather water 
will not freeze solid in it. If it does a curtain should be provided 
to drop down behind the hens and shul them in when they are on 
the roosts. 

3. The house should be sunny. Hens love the sun. See them 
stand in the path of sunlight on the morning of a clear, bright win- 
ter day. The house should face the south or southeast, whenever 



possible. There should no1 be too many windows, for windows Let 
the heat out as they lei it in, and the difference in temperature 
between noon and night is too great. 

KEEP THE HOUSE CLEAN. 

Cleanliness is the most important element in sanitation. Dis- 
ease germs find in filth a congenial soil. The hen house cannot be 
kept too clean! The room in which liens are con lined plays many 
parts — it is their sleeping room, dining room, workshop, their bath 
room and water closet. Suppose a large family to be shut up in 
one room and obliged to use it for eveiy purpose. Do you not see 
how careful they would have to be to escape disease? It is a won- 
der to me how hens manage to live through the winter in the ma- 
jority of houses, to say nothing of laying eggs. 

The hen house should have its daily, weekly, monthly and 
yearly cleaning. The window's should be opened in the middle of 
the day for two or three hours on every day in winter when the sun 
is shining. The droppings under the roosts should be removed 
every morning! When poultrymen realize that poultry manure is 
a virulent poison and should not be allowed to pollute the houses 
or the yards where the hens are kept, they will make a great step 
toward success. It takes but a few minutes to a house to remove 
the droppings, and the gain in looks and in wholesomeness is worth 
the cost. After the droppings are removed the dropping board 
should be sprinkled lightly with earth, coal ashes or land plaster. 

Once a week, summer or winter, the drinking vessels should be 
scalded out, and once a week in winter the litter should be shaken 
up, and if you have a board floor, the dust and dirt that settles to 
the bottom should be removed. If the floor is of earth the surface 
droppings should lie taken out and the earth raked e, p. 

Once a month the cleaning should be more thorough. The 
litter should be renewed, and the floor swept. The roosts should 
be kerosened and in summer the walls around the roosts sprayed 
with kerosene or with a kerosene emulsion. Nest boxes should be 
emptied, painted with a good lice killer, and when dried out filled 
about one-third full of dry planer shavings. The dust box should 
receive attention. 

The annual cleaning is still more radical. On some sunny day 
in autumn — the earler the better — shut the hens out in their yards 
and begin work upon their quarters. Everything movable in the 
house should be taken outside. Sweep the dust and cobwebs off 



20 



the walls, windows and ceiling. Sweep the floor, if yon have one. 
The walls should then receive a generous coat of hot whitewash, put 
on with a spray pump to save time. A good receipt for whitewash 
is as follows: Take a sufficient quantity of lime, slack it slowly and 
wet enough to make into a thick putty. Let it stand in this shape 
a few hours or a few days, and then reduce it with water to the 
thickness desired. Add one pint of crude carbolic acid to every 
12-quart pailful, and you will have a combination that will be death 
to lice. Sprinkle the floor with napcreol or some other disinfect- 
ant, kerosene the roosts, paint the nest boxes with some good lice 
killer, cover the dropping board with a coat of hot tar — in short, 
give the house a thorough cleaning. 

LICE AND RED MITES. 

Relentless and persistent war must be waged against lice and red 
mites. The poultryman who keeps his house in the sanitary condi- 
tion I have described is apt to think that the battle is won. that 
there is nothing more to do. Such is not the case. The foe is in 
hiding; it is not destroyed. There comes a falling off in egg pro- 
duction, and the poultryman wonders what is the cause. "Lice," 
says a too candid friend. The poultryman waxes indignant. "I'll 
give you a dollar apiece for every louse you find on my hens!"' he 
exclaims. The friend takes a hen off the nest, and holds her up to- 
ward the light, "full apart the fluff around the vent." he com- 
mands. The poultryman does so. and. lo! a covey of lice may be 
seen cutting to cover in the dense jungle of soft feathers. 

Where a big egg record is desired the hens must not be left to 
rid themselves of lice by their own efforts, but must lie dusted from 
time to time. The poultryman can make his own insect powder 
cheaper than be can buy it. but where only a few hens are kepi it 
will not pay him to do so. Lambert's "Death to Lice"' and Cyphers 
Lice Powder are standard preparations. If the poultryman wishes 
to make his own powder here are two formulas that may be de- 
pended upon: 

1. Take one pint of slacked lime and stir into it one ounce 
liquid carbolic acid. Add to this mixture three pounds finely 
ground tobacco and mix thoroughly. 'Ibis powder dusted wherever 
lice are will kill them. 2. Take five pounds strong tobacco 
dust, one pound air-slacked lime, one-half pound napthalenc — mix 
well together. This is sure death to hen lice, plant lice, lice on 
cattle, sheep ticks, bed bug-, ants, moths, etc. 



21 



Lice paint is a liquid preparation, and is used for painting roosts, 
nests, etc. 

The fumes penetrate the feathers of the bird and kill the lice. 
Lee's Lice Killer and Cyphers Surekil Lice Paint are highly recom- 
mended. A good lice paint is made by dissolving one pound 
napthalene flakes in one gallon kerosene oil. 

Bed mites make their home on the underside of the roosts and 
in cracks and crevices adjacent. They are quiet by day, but by 
night come forth to suck the life blood of their victims. The kero- 
sene treatment, which I have already described, is sure death to red 
mites, and it is folly not to exterminate them. 

TO KID A HOUSE OF VEKMIK 

Sometimes through carelessness or neglect a house becomes in- 
fested with vermin, and then radical measures are necessary. In 
the first place the house should be thoroughly fumigated. Close 
every door and window, and see that there are no cracks or apert- 
ures to admit air. Burn a pound of sulphur for every 100 square 
feet of floor space in the house, thus: a house 10x10 will require 
one pound of sulphur; one 20x10 two pounds; one 30x10 three 
pounds, and so on. The sulphur must be burned in iron vessels, 
which must be set on gravel or sand, so that there can be no danger 
from fire. Into each vessel put a handful of carpenter's shavings, 
saturated with kerosene, and upon these sprinkle the sulphur. 
Place the vessels in position, apply a match to the shavings, and 
hastily leave the house, closing the door behind you. Do not open 
the bouse again for five hours, when every door and window should 
be thrown wide open. In case you feel any anxiety about fire, you 
can look in through a window once in a while to see that every- 
thing is going well. 

After the fumes of sulphur have been driven out, with a hand 
sprayer, go through the house, sending a spray of kerosene every- 
where. These sprayers can be bought for half a dollar each, will 
last for years, and are simply invaluable. All the time you have 
been at work the hens have been in the yard outside, without food, 
and are now anxious to return to their home. Let them in, one by 
one, and as each enters catch her and dust her well with some good 
insecticide. 

GIVE THE HENS PLENTY OE ROOM. 

There is a snare spread for beginners in the poultry business 
which catches nearly all; it is to crowd the birds. The prospec- 



22 

five poultry man has a small flock and they have laid well. Me be- 
gins to reason like this: '■'! have kepi L2 hens in this pen the past 
year and the] have netted me two dollars apiece. All 1 have to do 
t<> increase my income is to increase the number of my birds. If 
12 hens have paid $24, 50 liens will pay me $100." This seems 
logical, and the prospective poultryman goes to work and put- in 
50 birds, only to find at the end of the year that the 50 birds have 
not paid him so well as the 12 did. They have laid no more eggs, 
and sickness has been rife among them. .More men lose money and 
retire from the poultry business in disgust from losses broughl 
about by putting too many birds into one pen than from any other 
cause. 

The farmer would not think of putting two cows in one stall. 
He would not plant his potatoes in rows one foot apait. He 
would not shut up his family in one room. Why should he not 
display the same good sense in dealing with his fowls/ Experi- 
ence has shown that 10 square feet of flour space is about the 
amount needed by each hen if she is to do her best. Where the 
house is kept perfectly clean, and where the hens have a chance to 
get out doors every pleasant day, they can gel along with a some 
what smaller space. But for the best ' results in egg producing 
there must be plenty of room. The year I made the phenomenal 
record with my White Wyandottes — 214 eggs apiece from October 
to October — 1 knocked out the partitions between two pens and 
gave the floek double room. 

Ok ST BATH. 

Provide your hens with a dust bath. They will spend many 
happy hours wallowing in the warm earth and will keep themselves 
reasonably free from lice. But do not trust to the dust bath en- 
tirely, for in the dead of winter the bath is often so cold that the 
biddies will not use it. and then lice will get in their work. Soil 
out of the garden, sifted through a common coal sieve, makes the 
best materia] for a dust bath that I know anything about. \e\i to 
this I rank coal ashes. The bath tub may be a sugar barrel, sawed 
off about a foot from the bottom and set in a sunny place, or one of 
those shallow square boxes that cereal foods come in, which may 
generally be obtained of the grocer for the asking. 

EXEBCLSE. 

Hens need a reasonable amount of exercise. They do not need 
to be kept on the jump from morning until night, but they do need 



23 



enough exercise to keep them in good trim. Where liens have 
free range they will attend to the matter of exercise themselves— 
although a hen having free range knows enough not to work when 
it is very hot or very cold. But when in confinement exercise mast 
be provided for them. The floor of the hen house, or scratching 
shed, should he kept carpeted with six inches of litter in winter, 
and the fowls should he made to work for all the grain they eat. 
This litter, as I have already said, should be frequently shaken up 
and occasionally renewed. Straw, fresh hay and dead leaves make 
the best litter. Dry planer shavings are good if they are not al- 
lowed to become too fine. 

THE POULTRY YAED. 

In summer the hens should be out in their yards. The yard 
does not need to be very large. Indeed, unless the yard is large 
enough to grow all the green stuff that is needed for forage, a 
small yard is better than a large one, for it is more likely to be 
kept clean. Much money is spent each year for wire netting and 
foundation boards for fences that could be laid out to much better, 
advantage in some other way. There should be shade of some 
kind in the yard. If the yard is small it should he raked and swept 
every week and the surface droppings removed. It should be 
spaded up from time to time. In the spring the surface soil to the 
depth of three or four inches should be removed and spread on the 
garden and replaced with fresh earth. If this is done there is 
much less danger of sickness with a small yard than with a big one 
that is never cleaned. 

GEIT, CHABCOAL AND OYSTER SHELLS. 

Nature has not provided fowls with teeth, and consequently 
they cannot masticate their food as can the higher animals. The 
food passes from the crop into the gizzard, where it is prepared for 
the intestines by trituration; that is, as the food passes through the 
gizzard it is triturated, or ground up, by the little flinty particles 
which line that member. Unless the fowl is well supplied with grit 
the food passes into the intestines improperly prepared, and the 
result is indigestion. It is a great mistake not to keep the fowls 
well supplied with grit. Charcoal is an alterative tonic, and 
should be before the hens all the time. Oyster shells are neces- 
sary to supply the lime needed for the egg shells, and nothing can 
take their place. 



24 



DRINKING WATER. 

Pure drinking water is as necessary to the health and comfort 
of fowls as it is to the health and comfort of human beings, and 
should be supplied in abundance. The water dishes should be 
scalded out from time to time, and if a few drops of carbolic acid 
are added to the water with which they are scalded so much the 
better. Have your water dish as simple as possible. There is 
nothing better than a two-quart measure, made of galvanized iron, 
set on a little shelf by the door of the hen house and six inches from 
the floor. 

SANITATION IN SUMMER. 

it has been my observation that hens that are kept shut up in 
houses and \;\r^\> suffer more from lack of sanitation in summer 
than in winter. There are a hundred directions printed for mak- 
ing the house warm to one for making it cool. And yet anyone 
who has watched a hen on a hot day in mid-summer, with mouth 
wide open and wings outspread, must realize that the poor creature 
is far from comfortable. Houses built on the colony community 
plan, such as I have already described, are ideal houses for summer 
as well as for winter, as there is a window in the front and on the 
end. As soon as warm weather comes I take out both windows, 
letting the air circulate freely through the house. Poultry wire 
tacked on the outside of the window frame keeps the biddies in 
and the "varmints" out. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Feeding for Two Hundred Egg* A Year. 

We now have our liens in a dry, warm, sunny and sanitary 
house, have supplied them with facilities for keeping cleau, and, 
of course, want them to lay. What shall we feed and how much? 
This is an important question, for unless a hen is supplied with ma- 
terial for egg production she cannot lay. She can no more produce 
■eggs without the proper food than a factory can turn out the 
finished product without raw materials. What shall we feed ami 
how much shall we feed, therefore? 

Let us again follow Lord Bacon's advice and interrogate Na- 
ture. Suppose we take a hen as she comes up to the house at the 
close of a long day in summer from foraging in the fields, kill her, 
take out her crop and analyze its contents. If we do so it is 
obvious that we shall obtain at least a part of the information we 
are after, for a hen lays in summer or not at all. 

What do we find as the result of our analysis? The crop we are 
dissecting has about as many articles in it as the average small 
boy's pocket, and they are equally miscellaneous. We find grains 
of corn that the hen has picked up about the barn, pieces of bread 
and table waste that she has found under the sink spout, clover 
leaves and tips of grass blades, bugs, worms and a mass of matter 
that we cannot resolve into the original elements. The first thing 
that impresses us as the result of our analysis is that the hen seeks 
variety. This mass of miscellaneous matter that we found in the 
hen's crop *can be arranged in three divisions: 1. Grain. 2. 
Green food and vegetables. 3. Animal food — in the form of 
bugs, worms and so forth. The conclusion is irresistible, that these 
three elements must be combined if we would have a perfect 
ration. 

How shall we combine them? The answer is not so difficult 
as one would at first suppose. There are many ways. The hen 
makes a new combination every day. Perhaps the ideal way is 
to have no stereotyped method, but to study variety. If we com- 
bine grain, green food and meat in the daily ration, the hen can 
haidly fail to respond with a goodly output of eggs. 



26 



FEEDING KOR EGGS: MOW MUCH. 

The problem, as every poultryman knows, is no1 whal to feed, 
luii how much. II you do no1 believe this write in the editor of 
your favorite poultry paper and ask him how much food you shall 
give a llnck of 15 hens, and sec what he will say. It takes a 
great deal of skill to steer between overfeeding on the one hand 
and underfeeding on the other. 1 believe, however, that there is 
a scientific principle underlying the matter, and think that alter 
a great deal of study and experimentation 1 have discovered the 
principle. 

In order to determine how much we should teed we must 
again interrogate Nature. Before we began to disseei the crop of 
the hen we had killed, suppose we had put it in the scales to 
ascertain its weight. If the lien from which the crop was taken 
was of an American breed, if she had been running in the fields 
all day and just before she had been killed had been given all the 
corn that she would eat, her crop with its contents would weigh 
not far from six ounces. Allowing that two ounces of food have 
passed into the intestines, it will be seen that when a hen is on 
the range, supplied with abundance of food, she will consume about 
eight ounces of food in the course of 24 hours. It would seem, 
therefore, that this is about the amount a hen need- to supply all 
the demands of her system and leave a margin for egg production. 
But before we settle down to this conclusion there are some things 
to be taken into consideration. On the range the hen has had 
plenty of exercise, and needs more food to supply the tissue lost 
than when in confinement. On the range food is more bulky and 
less nutritious than the food the hen receives in her pen. II con- 
tains a larger proportion of grass and vegetables. It is probable 
that in the pen. where the hen does not exercise so freely as she 
does on the range and where her food is more concentrated, she 
does not need so much food by one-fourth as -he does when at lib- 
ertv. Six ounces of food a day ought, therefore, to' be ample to 
supply all the needs of a hen in confinemeni. 

Six ounces of food a day for a hen weighing six pounds seems 
at first sight an enormous quantity. In the same ratio a man 
weighing 160 pounds would consume 10 pounds of food every 24 
hours. But before we dismiss the matter as absurd let us consider 
a moment. The hen's food is not so concentrated as the man's. 
It contains far less nutriment in proportion to bulk. A consider- 
able proportion of it will be voided in the form of excrement. Then 



27 



the hen has a task to perform such as is imposed upon few other 
creatures. Slie is expected to Lay an egg weighing no! less than 
two ounces; and an egg, as everyone knows, is one of the richest of 
food products. Deduci from the six ounces of food two ounces for 
waste and two ounces for egg production, and it will be seen that 
only two ounces are left to repair the tissues and maintain the 
temperature of the body. The laying hen needs a generous diet, 
and those doctrinaires who advocate keeping her in a state of 
semi-starvation have no support in reason for their theory. 

FEEDING FOE EGGS: WINTEB METHOD. 

Having given my readers the principles thai apply to feeding, 
I purpose now to tell thiciu how 1 put these principles into prac- 
tice. I desire to state here that 1 have no patent methods. I aim 
to apply common sense to the problem of egg production, as L do 
to other things; but I do not claim to have a monopoly of wisdom. 
There are doubtless other methods as good as mine. As I said in 
a preceding section, there are many possible combinations that 
will produce good results. 1 give you mine, and leave you to 
adopt it or not as 3'ou think best. 

From October to May I feed as follows: A mash the first 
thing in the morning. The mash is made as 1 am about to de- 
scribe. Into an iron kettle holding 12 quarts I put two quarts 
(dry measure) cut clover, two quarts mixed feed or wheal bran, two 
quarts corn meal, one quart green ground bone or beet scraps, and 
one quart table scraps. The ingredients are thoroughly mixed to- 
gether. I then take the kettle into the house and set it on the 
range, where the metal can become warm. I next stir in a heap- 
ing teaspoonful of salt, and in the coldest weather sprinkle 
in a little black pepper. Boiling water is 'then added to 
the mash in just sufficient quantity to moisten every particle and 
yet not have it sticky and sloppy. 1 consider the mash just right 
to feed when I can take some up in my hand and have it feel 
pleasantly warm (not hot), and dry enough so that it will not ad- 
here to the palm or fingers. Some advocate dry feeding. 1 have 
no doubt the food is just as nourishing without the water, and 
after they become accustomed to it (or starved into it) the bens 
will eat it readily enough; but before the food can be digested it 
must be moistened, and I think it better and safer to moisten it 
for the birds myself than to allow them to do so. I do not be- 
lieve the bird can moisten a lare-e handful of drv mixture after it 



28 

enters the crop so evenly as I can before it goes there. Then if 
the mash is about the temperature of the bird's body when it is 
fed (or, on cold mornings, a little higher) she will not have to use 
up her heat in raising it to that temperature. 

FEED ALE THE HENS WILL EAT UP CLEAN. 

I feed all the mash the hens will eat up clean in a reasonable 
time — say from 15 minutes to half an hour. Then I go through 
the pens and empty what is left (if anything) hack into the kettle to 
he fed the next da} r . At 11 o'clock I make a round of the pens to 
collect the eggs and look after the birds. On this trip I take with 
me green food of some sort — mangel wurzels, cabbages, apples or 
onions — and leave in each pen the amount thai experience has 
shown me the birds will eat up clean. About % o'clock in the 
afternoon I make the round of the pens again. I have told you 
that in each pen I keep a male and 12 females, and on this trip in 
the early afternoon I throw down in the deep litter one quart (dry 
measure) of grain of some kind. The three grains I feed arc 
wheat, cracked corn and oats. I study to give variety. On a mild 
afternoon I feed all oats or all wheat, on a moderately cold after- 
noon, about half cracked corn and about half wheat or oats, and on 
a very cold afternoon, cracked corn alone. When I get home from 
making pastoral calls it is generally dusk and the hens have gone 
to roost. Before supper I go through each pen to see that the birds 
are all right for the night. I empty the water dishes, collect any 
eggs that may be in the nests, pause a moment in each house to 
see that the birds are breathing right (no colds nor bronchitis) and 
occasionally feel of the crops to see. if I am feeding enough. If 
the crop is comfortably full — neither distended on the one hand 
nor nearly empty on the other — I conclude that the grain ration is 
about right so far as quantity is concerned. 

STUDY VARIETY. 

1 have given the ingredients of my standard morning mash, 
but I vary these ingredients from time to time. I don't want the 
same thing for breakfast every morning, and I don't believe my 
birds do. About twice a week I substitute gluten meal or linseed 
meal for green ground bone or meat scraps; and once in a while 1 
give a breakfast of scalded oats — the oats scalded the night before 
and allowed to stand on the back of the stove where they will 
be warm and nice in the morning. Occasionally I give a breakfast 



29 



made up of three parts by bulk of Biles' Fourex* and one pari t»\ 
bulk of corn meal. When I have plenty of small potatoes I make 
up a dish composed of boiled mashed potatoes, green ground bone 
and mixed feed or bran, which the fowls eat with avidity. L put in 
about four quarts potatoes, two quarts green ground bone and two 
quarts mixed feed or bran — season and serve hjot. The table 
scraps, which I feed every morning, add variety to my standard 
ration. 

♦Biles' Fourex (XXXX) is a by-product from distillers' grains. Very rich in fat and 
portein. A valuable new food, when mixed with one-third its bulb of corn meal 

FEEDING FOE EGGS— SUMMER METHOD. 

My method of feeding in summer is substantially the same as 
it is in winter, except that corn is struck entirely off my list and 
wheat and oats made to take its place. In summer, too, I give my 
hens grass and weeds from the garden for green food, instead of 
mangels, cabbages, apples and onions. We are fortunate here in 
Hampton in having close at hand an inexhaustible supply of food 
not usually found. Every northeast storm washes up on the beach 
tons and tons of seaweed, which may be had for the hauling. A 
load of seaweed dumped into a yard in summer will breed mil- 
lions of small white worms, which the fowls eat greedily. These 
worms, or maggots, are said to be better for the hens than wheat, 
and certainly form a very cheap addition to the daily bill of fare. 

FEEDING FOR EGGS- CAUTION. 

In what goes before I have given my method of feeding, but 
this method will need to be adopted to individual cases. No hard 
and fast rule can be laid down. The poultryman must study 
his flock, and learn by experience — he must mix brains with bis 
mash. The large criticism that will be made is that I feed too 
heavy and do not make my birds exercise enough. Bear in mind, 
however, that 1 have been talking about laying stock. Birds that 
are kept over for breeding are fed the same things that 1 feed my 
laying stock, but are not fed so much and are made to exercise 
more. In one case I am after eggs and a good many of them: in 
the other, I am after fertile eggs — that will hatch strong chicks. 
If you notice that your birds are becoming fat and lazy, drop an oc- 
casional soft-shelled egg } and that thir combs instead of being a 
healthy red are a dull purple, reduce the ration at once and set the 
birds to work — otherwise vou will have dead bens on your hands. 



30 



Aboui the time of feeding the mash; it don't make a cent's worth 
of difference whether yon feed morning, noon or night, so long as 
you feed enough and feed the right things. 

THE GOLDEN KULE FOB FEEDING. 

Give the hen a sufficient variety and quantity to meet all the 
needs of her system and leave a margin for egg production. A. 
warm mash in the morning, all she will cat with good relish in L5 
minutes to half an hour. Enough grain during the day so that 
she will go to roosl with a crop moderately full, neither distended 
on the one hand nor nearly empty on the other. Green food, 
either in mash or separately. More heating food in winter and 
more of it, than in summer. In general, it may he said that one 
ounce of food a dav for each pound she weighs is aboui right for 
the average hen. 

HOW" SOME SUCCESSFUL MEN FEED. 

Air. B. F. Dunlap, West Salisbury, N. IF— One of the most re- 
markable poultrymen that I know anything about is Mr. B. F. Dun- 
lap of West Salisbury, N. IE, who keeps from 450 to 500 head of 
laying stock (White Wyandottes and Bhode Island Vv><\±) and clears 
up a profit of $1,000 yearly. Mr. Dunlap is postmaster and pro- 
prietor ot a country store, and all the time he can devote to his 
hens is what he can snatch from his business. Mr. Dunlap lives 
five miles from the nearest railroad, and makes his profits from 
c-ggs, which he markets in Boston. 

•'Every day something different/ 5 is the principle he goes on, as 
expressed in his own words. He has four combinations, which he 
names from the leading article in each: Boiled potatoes, waste 
bread, clover hay, whole oats. The four combinations are as Eol- 
lows enough kettlesful being mixed up to feed the whole flock: 

1. Boiled potatoes, soaked over night, 8 quarts; gluten, soaked 
over night, 3 quarts. In the morning add mixed Iced. 2 quarts; 
corn and oats, ground and mixed together, 2 quarts. 

2. Waste bread, soaked over night, 8 quarts; heel' scraps, 2 
quarts; corn and oats, 2 quarts. 

'■]. Clover hay, soaked over night. In the morning add 2 
quarts (lour middlings, 2 quarts boiled beef and hone. 2 quarts coi n 
and oats. 

4. Whole oats, soaked over night, 8 quarts; gluten, soaked over 
night, I quarts. In the morning add 2 quarts shorts, 1 quart beef 
and hone. 2 quarts corn and oats. 



31 



The mash is fed in the morning, and the hens arc given -ill 
they will eat up clean in ten minutes. Th,e second and last meal 
comes at noon, and is grain of seme kind. 

The day Mr. Dunlap feeds boiled potatoes the liens have wheat. 
The day he feeds waste bread they have wheat or cracked corn. 
The day he feeds clover hay they have cracked corn. And the 
day he feeds oats and gluten they have cracked corn or buckwheat. 
The grain is thrown into the sand and litter in each pen, and the 
liens have to scratch for it. Mr. Dunlap does not give the hens 
all the grain they can eat, but as much as they can digest and come 
to breakfast the next morning with an empty crop and a good ap- 
petite. Whole turnips are kept in the pens all the time, so that the 
liens can get a taste of green food when thev want it. 



Mr. G. M. Gowell of the Maine Experiment Station is doing 
some excellent work with hens. Mr. Gowell is the originator of 
the trap nest described in this book, and keeps individual records. 
He breeds White Wyandottes and Barred Plymouth "Rocks, and 
long ago found the 200 egg hen. He feeds as follows: 

Twenty pullets and two cockerels are kept in each lot. 

Each pen of 22 receives one pint of wheat, in the deep litter 
•early in the morning. At 9.30 a. m. one-half pint of oats is fed 
to them in the same Avay. At 1 p. m. one-half pint of cracked com 
is given in the litter as before. At 3 p. m. in winter and 4 p. m. in 
the summer they are given all the mash they will eat up clean, in 
half an hour. 

The mash is made of the following mixture of meals: — 200 
pounds wheat bran, 100 pounds corn meal, 100 pounds wheat mid- 
dlings. 100 pounds linseed meal, 100 pounds meat meal or fine 
meat scraps. Bart of the year the linseed meal is omitted, and the 
amount of .neat meal doubled. The mash contains one-fourth of 
its bulk of clover leaves and heads, secured from the feeding floor 
in rhe cattle barn. The clover is thoroughly soaked with hot 
water. The mash is made quite dry. Cracked bone, oyster shells, 
•clean grit and water are at all. times before them. Two large 
mangels are ted to the birds in each pen daily in winter, and green 
food in plenty in summer. 



C. Bricault, M.D.Y., of Audover, Mass., is another man who has 
succeeded in obtaining the 200-egg hen — some of his White Wyan- 
dottes having considerably exceeded this figure. Dr. Bricault relies 



32 



more upon inheritance than upon any special hill of fare in getting 
the "00-egg hen. but his method of feeding, as given in his own 
words, is excellent. 

"Morning. — One of the following grains is scattered in the In- 
tel-: oats, wheat, corn, barley, about one handful to Two hens. We 
then water the hens, giving warmed water on very cold days; that 
is. water with the chill taken off. 

"Noon. — Grain as in the morning, but less, about one handful 
to three hens. We feed a different grain at every meal. At this 
meal we give the green food of the day (cabbage one day. beets the 
next, scalded clover or whatever we have on hand), but they get 
green food every day. Sometimes we give a feed of green cut bone 
as a variety in place of grain; but we do not feed cut bone regularly. 

"Night. — Our mash is fed at night, and we give the hens all 
they will eat. We make the mash as follows: bran, corn meal, 
ground oats, equal parts by bulk, well mixed together. These 
meals are put in the trough with enough boiling water to make the 
mass 'wet dry,' and covered over with a bag and left to cook in their 
own heat: when cool it is fed. We feed the mash every second day. 
We feed it in long troughs, and give all they will eat up clean in 

half an hour. The days on which the mash is omitted we giye • 

of the above mentioned grains — one handful to each hen. 
third contains a mixture of meat and the ground grains used in the 
mash, half meat and half grain. This last makes a good mixture 
to serve as lunch between meals. 

"We also keep a small piece of rock salt in each [ten for the 
hens to pick at. This can be placed in a slatted box, with the slat- 
about two inches apart. 

"We helie\e in regularity in feeding and practice it. 
"After the hens have gone to roost at nighf we scatter the morn- 

"A self-feeding trough is placed in every pen, divided into three 
compartments: in one there is grit, in the other oyster shells, the 
ing feed in the litter so the hens can go to scratching as soon as they 
come off the roost in the morning." 

FEEDING FOR EGGS: A WOMAN'S WAY. 

"In the morning 1 feed a mash made of about two parts bran to- 
one part ground oats. For every 50 hens I put in two quarts, good 
measure, of green ground hone: also some vegetables, well cooked 
and mashed. This latter I vary as much a.- possible, using water 
in which vegetables have been cooked to moisten the mash, pro- 
viding it is not so strongly flavored as to be disagreeable to the: 



33 



htfnSj as sometimes happens if turnips have been cooked in it. '1 he 
proportion of vegetable matter given to lien- in winter is much 
smaller than that given in summer, and also smaller than the other 
ingredients in the mash. In summer cut grass or clover ami vege- 
table tops are substituted for the roots given in winter and are fed 
separately whenever convenient. Dried beef scraps are substituted 
in summer for the ground bone in winter and are U'(\ in smaller 
quantities, perhaps half the amount. 1 season with salt rather less 
than I would for my family. I never use pepper, lint occasionally 
ginger. When using pepper and seasoning highly with salt, I have 
always had more or less hens die of liver trouble in spring. My 
mash is always thoroughly scalded and frequently well cooked, as in 
winter I often mix it the night before and let it remain in the oven 
over night. Animal meal I consider a cheap food which will make 
hens lay; but 1 cannot use it, even in much smaller quantities than 
the rule, on account of its laxative qualities. 

"My hens always have warm water in clean drinking vessels in 
winter and cool water in summer. 

"The second and last feed comes after dinner, when I hoe or 
rake into the litter on the hen house floor two parts whole oats to 
one part wheat. The litter is six or eight, inches deep, and the feed 
is given generously enough to make them feel rewarded for scratch- 
ing up to the next afternoon. 

"Oyster shells I prefer to throw in fresh every day. especially 
in the latter part of the winter, when they get too busy laying to 
cat the proper amount of lime. 

"A neighbor adopted my way of feeding, but with pullets 'nought 
of me failed to get like results. 1 attribute the failure to the fact 
that he was afraid of wasting feed, and if he could possibly find a 
grain would not feed more. In the morning I feed all the hens 
will eat with a relislu— Miss L. M. S., Auburn, Me. 



CHAPTER V. 



food* and food Value*. 



Readers of the poultry and agricultural press are continually 
coming across expressions, the meaning of which they hut dimly 
comprehend. They read of "narrow" and "wide'- rations, "pro- 
teids" and "carbohydrates," -'concentrates" and "coarse foods." 
All this in most cases is so much Greek. I have talked with many 
intelligent poultry keepers, hut have rarely found one who could 
tell why he fed as he did apart from the fact that his ration had 
justified itself in experience. And yet a little knowledge of the 
elementary principles of scientific feeding may he of great value. 
It will enable a man to feed more economically, as he can often 
substitute for a. high-priced food one much lower in price, and also 
to feed so that he can secure the results he is after without loss 
of time or waste in any way. It is my purpose in this chapter to 
make the matter of foods and feeding so simple that anyone can 
understand it. 

PEOTEIDS— THINGS THAI' BUILD UP. 

The food that is eaten has three functions to perform. The 
first is to build up. In the animal body a process of waste and 
repair is continually going on. Old tissues are breaking down and 
being replaced by new ones. It is evident that if an exact balance 
is to be preserved considerable food must be eaten. But besides 
this process of waste and repair another process may be going on — 
that of growth and manufacture. In the chick, for instance, the 
frame is being built up rapidly, the feathers are coming out, and 
the flesh and muscles receive their daily increment. In the laying 
hen the egg is being formed. Now there are certain elements in 
the food that is taken that go to repair the waste and build up the 
body; they also enter largely into the manufactured product — the 
milk of the cow and the egg of the hen. These elements are called 
proteids. They are absolutely necessary to the life and health of 
the animal, and must be furnished in sufficient quantities or decay 
and death will ensue. 

OARBOHYDRATES— THINGS THAT WARM UP. 

Besides building up food is required for another purpose — to 
warm up. The temperature of the human body is 98 degrees; 



35 



that of the hen's body, 103 degrees. To maintain the temperature 
ofthe body food must be burned in the stomach just as coal is 
burned in the furnace. You have all noticed on a cold day in win- 
ter how difficult it is to keep the temperature of a room up to 70, 
and how much fuel is required to do it. And yet the temperature 
of the body must be kept 28 degrees above this, or the result will 
be a chill, from which we may never recover. 

There are certain elements in the food that go directly to the 
production of heat, and these are called carbohydrates. They in- 
clude sugar, starch and gums (sometimes called "nitrogen-free ex- 
tract"), and the cellulose or fibre (the coarse or woody part of a 
plant) which, however, is indigestible. The cereals are especially 
rich in carbohydrates. We sometimes read that the farmers in 
Kansas and Nebraska, in years when the corn crop is excessive, use 
corn for fuel; and that is precisely what we do when we feed corn 
to our hens in the winter. The corn is the fuel which the hen 
burns to maintain the temperature of her body at 103. Such being 
the ease, the importance of a warm, snugly-built house to keep 
down fuel bills becomes at once apparent. 

In a well conducted manufacturing establishment the fuel that 
is burned serves a double purpose: it not only generates the steam 
that warms the building, but it also generates the steam that drives 
the machinery. Perfectly analogous to this is the service rendered 
by the food elements that we denominate carbohydrates. They 
not only keep the body at a proper temperature, but they also 
furnish the energy by which the work is done. 

FATS— TPIINGS THAT ARE STORED UP. 

The careful and prudent head of a household is not content to 
"live from hand to mouth," as the saying is. He does not buy his 
coal from day to day, his flour a few nounds at a time, and his vege- 
tables as he needs them to use. On the contrary he has a well- 
stocked cellar, in which are enough supplies to last for some time. 
The thrifty wage-earner does not spend quite all he earns, but 
saves a certain amount each week, which he deposits in a savings 
bank or invests in life insurance. Nature, our thrifty mother, is 
not content that her children shall live from day by day; so she 
lays by a reserve from which they can draw in time of need. This 
reserve is the fat which she wraps around the tissues and with 
which she encases some of the organs. 



36 



There is one very curious thing that is true of the different 
food elements — they can take the place of each other, to some ex- 
tent. This is not true of the proteicls. Nothing can take their 
place. But it is true of the carbohydrates and the fats. At the 
New York State Experiment Station a cow was fed for 95 days upon 
food from which the fat had been extracted as thoroughly as possi- 
ble. In spite of this absence of food fat the cow continued to 
secrete milk similar to that produced on a normal ration. Nearly 
sixty-three pounds of fat was yielded in the milk during the ninety- 
five days, and the cow gained forty-seven pounds during that time, 
being judged a much fatter cow at the end than at the beginning. 
This experiment would seem to he conclusive that the milk fat was 
produced quite largely, if not entirely, from the carbohydrates of 
the food. On the other hand, so well is it settled that fat may be 
converted into carbohydrates, that it is the common practice to 
multiply the fat by 2.25 to get its equivalent in carbohydrates in 
making up an equation. 

Besides these three principal food elements which I have enu- 
merated there axe subordinate food elements as follows: Ash, rep- 
resenting the mineral ingredients after a food is burned. These 
ashes consist of lime, potash, soda, magnesia, iron, phosphoric acid, 
and sulphuric acid. Water, present in all foods to some extent. 
Fibre or cellulose, the coarse or woody part of a. plant (already 
mentioned under the head of carbohydrates, but more appropriately 
coming here). 

A BALANCED RATION. WIDE AND NARROW RATIONS. 

We are now in a position to frame our definitions. A balanced 
ration is a ration in which all the elements required to meet the 
needs of the animal for the time being are present in right propor- 
tion. It will be seen by this definition that a balanced ration is not 
a fixed and invariable tiling. A ration that is correctly balanced 
for chicks is not balanced for laying stock, and a ration that is bal- 
anced for laying stock is not balanced for birds that are being fat- 
tened for market. It has been found by experience that the ration 
1.2 (one part protein to two parts carbohydrates) is about right 
lor chicks; the ration 1.4 i- about right for laying stock, and the 
ration 1.6 is about right for fattening. In making up the ration 
the ingredients arc weighed, not measured, and the fat is multiplied 
by 2.25 (or 2\) to reduce it to carbohydrates. 



37 



V wide ration is one in which the protein is largely exceeded 
by the carbohyd rates; a narrow ration is one in which the protein 
and carbohydrates are more nearly equal. As a matter of fact, any- 
thing exceeding 1.6 would be called a wide ration, and anything 
under it a narrow one. 

SOME THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND. 

The reader who has followed me carefully will see how abso- 
lutely impossible it is to feed a flock of hens by rule. Common 
sense must come in. A ration that would be correctly balanced for 
one day would not be balanced for the next. For instance, on a 
very cold day in winter we burn twice as much coal to keep warm 
as on a mild day, and on the same day the flock would require a 
much wider ration (more carbohydrates or warming up food) than 
on a mild day or in midsummer. 

Fortunately the hen has considerable power of adjustment, and 
so survives our well-meaning but bungling and imperfect efforts to 
feed her scientifically. If we do not feed enough, she draws upon 
her reserve; and if we feed too much she has the power of passing 
the excess through the body unassimilated. It is for this reason 
that I advocate feeding generously. Nature can take care of a 
surplus if it is not too great, but the only way in which she can 
meet a deficit is by drawing on her reserve. 

The reader, too, will now see why it is that one poultryman 
feeds one way, and another another, and both have good results. 
The principal thing is to get your ratios with succulent, nutritious 
food; and if you do this your hens are sure to respond with a goodly 
output of eggs. 

GREEN FOODS. 

AVhat is the value of green food in the daily ration? Its great 
value is that it makes it more digestible; it lightens up the ration 
and makes it possible for the gastric juices to permeate every 
particle. Then, too, green food often contains certain mineral salts 
that the birds need, in a soluble and digestible form. Green food 
should form a portion of the daily bill of fare, either in the mash 
or separately. "In the winter and early spring months, mangel- 
wurzels, if properly kept, may be fed to good advantage. In feed^ 
ihg these beets to flocks of hens a very good practice is simply to 
split the root lengthwise with a large knife. The fowls will then 
be able to pick out all the fresh, crisp food from the exposed cut 



38 



surface. Cabbages can be grown cheaply in many localities and 
make excellent green food so long as they can be kept fresh and 
crisp. Kale and beet leaves are equally as good and are readily 
eaten. Sweet apples are also suitable, and, in fact, almost any crisp, 
fresh, green food can be fed with profit. The green food, in many 
instances, may be cut fine and fed with the soft food, but, as a rule, 
it is better to feed separately during the middle of the day, in such 
quantities that the fowls have about all they can eat at one time." 

CLOVER AS A FOOD. 

Clover is the green food, par excellence. Second-crop clover 
is best. It should be cut just as it is coming into bloom, or a little 
before, when there is a profusion of tender green leaves and the 
stalks have not become woody and dry. Great care should be taken 
in curing the crop. Clover for hens should be cut into short 
lengths, say one-fourth of an inch, and may be fed alone at noon. 
Or it may be mixed in the morning mash with boiling water. It 
is not necessary to steep it over night as some do. Clover is excel- 
lent, but somewhat expensive. 



39 



> £ 3 £ 


-1 »« 






Q^WiB " £ 










o g o o 






SO 5. 09 *■ 






iseed 

Is. 

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05 




3 "= gs >£. 


a ■ "0 

35 O tj 


CO 




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" X & g> 


to hj a 






X j=. a 


5? £ 




o 
















go W 


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uff'alo. 
Queen, 

other s 
feeds, 
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alt spn 
brewers 


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lour and stand: 
middlings, mi 
and wheat bra 
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ye. barley, oat, 
d hominy meals, 
oat, U-O horse, 
daiiy and Sehu- 
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(75 



40 



TABLE SHOWING COMPOSITION AND VALUATION 
PRINCIPAL FOODS. 



OF 









i 'dm pi 


sition. 






Valua- 
tion. 












+3 
















~ 




c 


FOOD STUFFS. 














Cr. 












SOX 




sps 












; :. 








— 




■g 


s 


r s 


^ 


+= 




















"" 


"*< 


a. 


fa 


Z<h 


fa 


fc 



Protein Foods. 

< Jottonseed meal 

1 'leveland flax cueal 

Linseed meal (new process). 
Linseed meal (old process).. 
■< hicago gluten meal 

< Jreain gluten meal 

Biles XX X X gi ains 

Mall Sprouts 

I tried brewers grains 

W heat middling (Hour) 

Wheat middling (standard). 

Mixed feed 

Wheat bran 

H-( I dairy feed 

Animal Foods. 

Beef Scrap 

Pork Scrap 

Dried blood 

Green bones 

Starchy Foods. 

Corn meal 

( !orn and ( '<>)> meal 

Hominy meal 

( Jround oats 

( irou ad barley 

< lorn and oat feed 

Victor corn and oat feed. . .. 

H-O borse feed 

Quaker dairy feed 

Shumacher's stuck feed 

( >at feed (average) 



Cereals. 



( torn 

Wheat 

Oats 

Barley 

Buckwheat 

Kye 

tiice 

Milk. 

Whole milk 

Skim milk, raised. . . . 
Skim milk, separated . 
Buttermilk 



7.0 

9.0 

9.0 

8.5 

9.5 

9.0 

8.0 

11.0 

8.0 

10.0 

10.0 

10.0 

10.0 

8.0 



i 1.3 

0.S 
6.7 
6.9 



14.0 
11.0 
9.0 

1.-.0 

13.0 
10.0 
10.0 
9.0 
8.0 

s.o 

7.0 



10.9 

10.5 
11.0 
in 11 
13. ii 
11.6 
12.4 



90.4 
90 6 
90.1 



6.5 
5.3 

5.5 
5 2 
1.0 
9 
1.8 
5 . 8 
3.8 
3.3 
4.3 
5.3 
6.2 
3.6 



8.0 

2.2 

6.6 

24.5 



1.4 
1.4 
2.6 
3.3 
2.3 
3 
3.5 
3.3 
4.6 
4.1 
5.3 



1.5 

1.8 
3.0 
2.4 
2.0 
1.9 
0.4 



45.4 
38.3 
36 9 
34 6 
37.2 
34.3 
31 7 
27 1 
23.1 
10.4 
18 1 
17 1 
16.3 
18.3 



58.0 
57 4 
65.1 

22.3 



9.5 

s.o 
11.2 
11.4 
11.3 
9.1 
s.7 
12.5 
13 .2 
11.5 



10.4 
11.9 
11 8 
12.4 
10.0 
10.6 
13.0 



3.5 

3.1 
2.9 
3.9 



6.1 


24.5 


8.8 


36.3 


8.9 


37.2 


8.6 


36 8 


2 2 


47.9 


2 2 


51.6 


13.6 


31.4 


11.9 


42 6 


10.8 


49.4 


3.2 


59.4 


7 


55 (i 


S.4 


54.6 


10.1 


53. 1 


12.7 


53.4 





5.3 


1.9 


69.9 


6.7 


68.4 


I 2 


64.2 


s.7 


60 s 


5.7 


65.8 


10.0 


tit. 7 


111 


63. 1 


0..S 


62.1 


It; 8 


54.3 


11.4 


60.4 


21. s 


55.3 


l 9 


70.3 


1.8 


71.9 


9.5 


59.7 


2 7 


69.8 


s.7 


64.5 


1.7 


72.5 


0.2 


23.0 




4.8 




4.7 












4 



10.5 
2.1 
2.5 
6.3 
2.2 
2.0 

10.5 
1.6 
4.9 
4.8 
5.0 
4.6 
4.4 
4.0 



32.0 

39.6 
16.3 

16.5 



3.3 
3.6 

8.5 
3.8 
1.9 

3.2 
3.7 
3.4 
3.1 
4.6 
2.8 



5.0 
2.1 

5.0 
1.8 
2.2 
1.7 

23.6 



3.7 
0.8 
0.3 
1.0 



1:1 
1:1.1 
1:1.1 
1:1.5 
1:1.4 
1:1.6 
1:1.6 
1:1.7 
1:3.1 
1:3.1 
1:3.7 
1:3.8 
1:3.9 
1:3.4 



1:1.3 
1:1.6 
1:0.6 
1:1.6 



1:8.1 
1:8.5 
1:7.4 
1:6.1 
1:6.2 
1:7.0 
1:8.2 
1:5.6 
1:4. Ii 
1:6.1 
1:8 



1:7.9 
1:6.3 
1:6.0 
1:6.0 

1:7 

1:7.2 

1:6 



1:3.8 

1:2 
1:2 
1:1.6 



CHAPTER VI. 



Eggs in Tall and Winter- 



Unless a man breeds fancy fowls and has a good rnarkei in the 
spring for eggs for hatching, the gilt-edged profits come from eggs 
produced in late fall ami early winter. There is no commodity 
that I know anything about where the price fluctuates so much in 
the course of a year as it does on eggs. In the local market eggs 
range in price from 12 to 15 cents in April and May to 30 to in 
cents around Thanksgiving. In spite of all that has been written 
and said about eggs in the late fall and early winter, there is al- 
ways a shortage about this time, and there is likely to be for years 
to come. 

The reason why it is so difficult to get eggs in late fall or early 
winter is that it is against Nature. The primary object of a bird 
in laying eggs is not to please the palate of the epicure or add to 
the profits of the owner, but to reproduce her kind. Now it is a 
universal law that all creatures in a wild state bring forth their 
young at that season of the year when food is most abundant. The 
ben has been domesticated for more than thirty centuries, but back 
of this is a period of much greater extent when she was wild. 

No artificial breeding or habitat can ever completely eradicate 
aboriginal instincts. The natural time for a hen to lay i- in the 
spring and summer. It is evident, therefore, that in working for 
eggs in fall and early winter we are working against Nature, and 
can never hope for that complete success that we may expect when 
we are working with Nature and Nature is working with us. 
WINTER EGGS COME EKOM PELLETS. 

Eggs in the fall and winter come principally from pullets. At 
Thanksgiving time, when eggs are at their maximum, the hens have 
not fully recovered from their moult. They may lay a few eggs, 
but nothing great. Those who get winter eggs in large quantities 
are those who follow the advice of this book and plan to have at 
least two-thirds of their laying stock pullets. But not every pullet 
is a layer. It is only those that are well grown and have been 
handled right that are now giving a good account of themselves. 
The first great rule for winter eggs is as follows: Get out your 
chicks early and keep them coming from the day they break the 
shell down to the clay they go into the laying pens in the fall. 



42 



AMERICAN BREEDS BEST. 

The breed has something to do with it. As a rule the American 
breeds are the 'nest winter layers. I know that this statement will 
be challenged, and that instances will be given where the Mediter- 
raneans or Asiatics have equaled or surpassed the Americans in egg 
production; but the statement will stand. The Mediterraneans are 
thin feathered and are very susceptible to climatic conditions. A 
sudden cold snap will often cause the egg product to drop to zero. 
The Asiatics, on the other hand, are thick feathered, but slow in 
maturing — they do not get ready to lay until well on toward spring. 
The man who wants winter eggs will make no mistake if he fills his 
pens with well matured pullets of the American class. 

• A WARM HOUSE ESSENTIAL. 

In olden times hens were not expected to lay in winter. N<> 
wonder they did not! They were not hatched out until June, and 
were expected to pick up their living in the fields. After it be- 
came too cold for them to roost in trees they were allowed to stay in 
the barn nights, roosting on the big beams, or were thrust down 
into the noisome barn cellar. A few handfuls of corn were thrown 
down to them from time to time, and if they wanted to quench 
their thirst they could eat. snow or break the ice in the horse 
trough. It is a marvel they ever lived through the winter, to say 
nothing of laying eggs. Even to-dav. when poultry keeping is so 
much better understood, the importance of a warm house is not 
half enough appreciated. 

The West Virginia Experiment Station a few years ago scien- 
tifically demonstrated the importance of a warm house in the pro- 
duction of winter egos. "Two houses situated side by side and sim- 
ilar in all respects were selected for the experiment. The houses 
had been constructed with matched siding and shingle roofs. Be- 
fore the experiment began, one house was sheathed on the inside 
with boards and then thoroughly papered so as to cover all the 
cracks. The experiment began November 24th, and continued for 
five periods of 30 days each. The two flocks were fed the same 
kind and amount of food. The total number of eggs produced per 
100 hens in the warm house was 5,239, while in the cold house 100 
hens laid but 4,136 eggs in the same time, a balance in favor of the 
warm house flock of 1.103 eggs worth in the local market 24 cents 
per dozen, or $22.00. It is thus seen that the additional expense 
for increasing the warmth of the house was a very profitable in- 
vestment." 



43 



FEEDING FOR WINTEE EGGS. 

Readers of the preceding chapter of this book will need no >\>r- 
cial instruction in the production of winter eggs, but it will do no 
harm to repeat the substance of what I have said. To get eggs in 
winter, or, indeed, at any season of the year, it is necessary to feed 
o-eneronslv. One cannot get something for nothiner, and if one i- 
to get plenty of eggs from his hens he must supply them with the 
raw materials for egg making. "Overcrowding and underfeeding 
are two serious hindrances to a good egg yield; but underfeeding is 
by far the more serious hindrance to a profitable winters work with 
the layers." So the second great rule for. winter eggs is: Give 
plenty of good wholesome Pood and give variety, if you want winter 
layers. 

EGG FOODS AND TONIC>. 

The question comes nr> in this connection as to the expediency 
of using egg foods and tonics where winter eggs are wanted. On 
the one hand there are some who recommend their use; on the other 
there are those who unqualifiedly condemn. Theoretically, I sup- 
pose, it is better not to use them; but, actually, they may be used 
occasionally to good advantage. I suppose it would be better for a 
man never to overwork, but to consume each day only so much 
energy as he made. But, as a matter of fact, there come occasions 
into the life of every busy man when he is compelled to work 16 or 
18 honrs at a stretch, day after day, and draw upon his reserve. 
Nature allows him to do this, but only on condition that he make 
up the deficit as soon as he can. Nature is like a bank that allows 
a good customer occasionally to overdraw. It will do no harm to 
stimulate a healthy, well-grown bird a little when eggs are high; 
but to use stimulants and condition powders habitually is to defeat 
the very purpose for which, they are made — they either kill the lien 
or she becomes immune and no longer responds. 

$100.00 IN GOLD: MOW ME. S. D. FOX WON IT. 

Some years ago the manufacturers of a well-known condition 
powder advertised a "Gold Coin Premium Contest" for the best 
egg record during the winter months, in which $200.00 in gold 
was to be given to 16 contestants. There was one first prize of 
$100.00, five prizes of $10.00 each, and ten prizes of $5.00 each. 
The contest was open to the world. The conditions were that each 
contestant must keep not less than 12 hens, must buy at least one 



44 



dollar's worth of condition powder, and must make 1 a full four 
months' trial. The time for the close of the contest was set at 
April 1. The first prize was won by Mr. S. D. Fox of Wolfeboro, 
\. II. Unfortunately Mr. Fox kept no records other than those he 
sent in, and in a general clearing up of the central office a short 
time since all records relating to the contest were destroyed. Con- 
sequently I am unable to give the figures, but it may be enough to 
state thai ou1 of the hundreds of contestants Mr. Fox won the first 
prize. I will give his methods, as oearly as possible in his own 
words. 

"That fall," said Mr. Fox, J had a master line lot of hens — ■ 
White Wyandottes, with just a dash of Leghorn blood in "em to 
make 'em lay. They were hatched early, and I began to get eggs 
from them in October. "When 1 saw the contest advertised 1 
thought I would enter. I didn't expect to get the first prize, but 
thought possibly 1 might get one of the others. So I bought a dol- 
lar's worth of condition powder of C. W. Hicks, who then kept the 
Wolfeboro Drug Store, and started in. I remembered rending in an 
old book the following sentence: 'There is nothing that will make 
hens lav equal to cayenne pepper and milk/ I had a cow that came 
in the fall, which was giving about 16 quarts of milk a day. 1 
made n |i a pen of the likeliest looking pullets, and started in. I fed 
them in the morning a mash made of equal parts of corn meal, 
ground oats and bran. I didn't know anything about meat meal 
or ground hone in those days, and so I put in instead a handful of 
linseed meal and what scraps we had left from the table. I mixed 
this mash up with warm skim milk. Two or three times a week 1 
shook into the milk a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper. I gave the 
hens all the mash they would eat up clean. At noon I fed oats and 
at night corn. I gave the hens all the milk they would take. 1 
gave it to 'em sweet: 1 gave it to 'em sour; I gave it to 'em in the 
form of curd. There were davs when they had no water — nothing 
but milk. Fay? You never saw anything like it! 1 wish I could 
remember how many they laid. Anyway they laid enough to bring 
me the first prize of $100.00. Give me cayenne pepper and skirri 
milk, and I'll risk hut what I can make hens lay every time." 

R. FOX'S FIEN PEKSUADER 

""I can give you a receipt for an egg food and tonic that will do 
the business," said Mr. Fox. "I sent off once for an egg food that 
\\a< lnVhlv advertised, and the first thing I knew it had killed five 



45 



hens. No, I guess 1 won't give you the name Maybe 1 was a lit- 
tle anxious to have 'em lay, and fed too much of il. I >n t this one 
I can vouch for. It is the greatest hen persuader I know anything 
about, T fed it one winter to 72 hens, and one day got 68 egg>. 
Five days in succession from the same flock 1 got 64 eggs. Take 
ten pounds bone meal, ten pounds beef scraps, five pounds fenu- 
greek, two pounds sulphur, two pounds charcoal, one-half pound 
cayenne pepper, one-half pound salt. Mix and keep. Put a half 
pint in the mash every morning for 20 hens. When you feed this 
egg food, feed no meat meal or meat scraps, and do not salt the 
mash. You will get the mixture right if you remember that the 
combined weight of the ingredients is 30 pounds. It costs about a 
dollar and a half to make it.*" 

TO STAET PULLETS TO LAYING IN THE FALL. 

When pullets are old enough to lay and do not lay they need 
some slight shock or change to start them in. The majority of 
those who rear chickens give them free range, or as near free range 
as possible, during the summer months. This is correct. But 
after they get their growth their energies need to be directed to egg 
production and not run off in useless exercise. Accordingly as 
early as October 1st — if not before — the pullets should be taken 
from the range and put into the laying houses. Here their range 
should be restricted. More meat meal or ground bone may be ad- 
vantageously introduced into their ration, and a stimulant may be 
given in the shape of cayenne pepper or condition powder. This 
treatment soon induces egg production, if they are of the "bred-to- 
la v" kind. 



CHAPTER VII. 



The Sex Element in Egg Production. 



Why do hens lay at all? This is the most momentous question 
that confronts the poultryman. If he can answer the question cor- 
rectly he is in a position to proceed intelligently and systematically 
with egg production. If he cannot answer it. or has never even 
thought of it, he is in no condition to get a large and uniform egg 
yield, fie may make a hit occasionally, but there will be years 
when egs - s will be i'ew ami Ear between. 

It is evident to the most casual observer that bens do not lay for 
their own amusement — for the fun it gives them. Anyone who 
has ever watched a hen straining to discharge the egw or who has 
taken an egg out of a nest blood stained from some internal hemor- 
rhage, must realize that the passage of an egg by a hen is not for 
her altogether an agreeable operation. Doubtless there is a sense 
of relief when the egg is expelled — but so there is when a man has 
had an ulcerated tooth extracted. Nor do hens lay to add to the 
profits of their owner. It is a common complaint, and one in which 
there is a good deal of truth, that hens lay only when eggs are cheap 
and shut down when they are dear! No, hens do not lay for fun 
or to add to the bank account of their owner; they lay for an alto- 
g< I her different purpose. 

Implanted in the core and center of every living thing is the 
desire to reproduce its kind. It seems to be the design of nature 
that the species shall be perpetuated at any cost, "Multiply and 
replenish the earth" is a command addressed to plants, animals and 
birds as well as to man. So imperious is this instinct of reproduc- 
tion, so irresistible, that some of the lower orders propagate at the 
cost of their own lives. 

The hen lays to gratify the imperious instinct of reproduction. 
In her wild state the hen lays from six to ten eggs a year. She 
lays them in some secluded nook in the jungle, that she may rear 
her little brood. If it were not for this instinct of reproduction 
the hen would never lay. We have taken this instinct of reproduc- 
tion, stimulated it so that the domestic fowl now lays from ten to 
twentyfold as many e^s as her aboriginal ancestress; but have 
largely forgotten, if we ever knew, that it is the presence of this 
instinct that makes egg production possible. 



47 



CONDITIONS OF REPEODUCTION. 

What are the conditions of reproduction? They arc five, and 
they are as follows: 

1. Maturity. The an una], bird or plant must be in the inter- 
mediate state between growth and decay. The desire for reproduc- 
tion is greater at the beginning of this intermediate state, and 
steadily declines toward its end. This is why a fowl will lay more 
eggs the first year after coming to maturity than in any subsequent 
year of her life. 

2. Vitality. Reproduction draws upon the vital forces as does 
no other act. This is why the bird feels a desire to incubate after 
her litter is completed — she needs rest. The broody hen should be 
treated with, great consideration, and not ruthlessly abused, as is too 
often the case. The immediate effect of disease or injury is to 
weaken the desire for reproduction. A sick hen is not a laying 
hen. 

3. Nutrition. The animal, bird or plant must be well fed. 
Darwin makes nutrition the principal factor in reproduction. He 
says: "With hardly an exception our domesticated animals, which 
have long been habituated to a regular and copious supply of food, 
without the labor of searching for it, are more fertile than the cor- 
responding wild animals. The amount of food affects the fertility 
of even the same individual; thus sheep, which on mountains never 
produce more than one lamb to a birth, when brought down to low- 
land pastures, frequently bear twins As Mr. Dixon has remarked, 
"High feeding, care and moderate warmth, induce a habit of proflig- 
acy which becomes in some measure hereditary." (Animals and 
Plants Under Domestication, vol. ii, chap, xvi.) 

4. Sanitation. Sanitation profoundly affects vitality, and 
without sanitation the other conditions cannot produce their full 
effect. The hen house should be kept perfectly clean, the birds 
free from parasites; they should not be crowded, and should be sup- 
plied with everything necessary to comfort and health. 

5. Sex. In the very lowest forms of life reproduction is 
asexual — that is, the new life is produced not by the coming to- 
gether of male and female, but by fission or cleavage from the 
parent organism. But all higher animals and plants are repre- 
sented by distinct male and female forms, and the more com- 
pletely each form is sexed the greater its power of reproducing its 
kind. 



48 



THE SEX ELEMENT IN REPRODUCTION. 

The importance of the sex element in reproduction has never 
"been fully understood. Splendid work is being done at experiment 
stations and by independent investigators in the study of the do- 
mestic fowl. The trap nest has enabled us to select the hens that 
la}' the most eggs, and to breed from them. Nutrition has been 
studied, until we can feed with almost mathematical certainty; but 
the study of sex has been neglected. It may be that the study of 
sex requires a knowledge of physiology and biology that is lacking 
in the case of most poultrymen: but it is here that the richest 
field lies, and when a man lias mastered the subject of sex he is in 
a condition to obtain a large am! uniform egg yield with the mini- 
mum amount of cost and labor. 

BREED FROM THE BEST SEXED BIRDS. 

The great secret of large and uniform egg production I believe 
to be this: Breed from the best sexed birds! Poultry writers are 
reviving the old question as to whether or not there is an egg type. 
I am inclined to think there is. But the egg type that I care most 
about is one based on sex. The male that is the most distinctly 
male and the female that i- the most distinctly female are the birds 
for me. 

By keeping this principle in mind I have succeeded in building 
up a strain of birds that are splendid layers. 1 do not use the 
trap nest, and so am not aide to give individual records. I did 
have a bird once that laid an egg that allowed me to keep tab on 
her as accurately as if I had used the trap nest. From some 
peculiarity of the ovaries the egg had a ring around it about one- 
third of the distance from the smaller to the larger end; it was ivory 
white in color and of medium size. It was such an egg as I could 
not very well mistake, hi 14 months and 10 days more than 300 
of these eggs appeared. The hen then became broody, and I fool- 
ishly allowed her to sit. After she had completed the process of 
incubation and weaned her chicks, so much time had been lost that 
I did not attempt to keep tab upon her again. I have given up 
pushing my hens for big egg production, but take what comes 
along. Whien conditions are right T get from 150 to 200 eggs a 
year apiece from my best layers and with that 1 am satisfied. 

HOW I APPLY THE PRINCIPLE OF SFX SELECTION. 

And now I will tell the readers of 11 1 is chapter how I apply the 
principle of sex selection. I keep a close watch over my chicks 



49 

from the day they break the shell, and as soon as one shows' its sex 
that chick is marked so that I can tell it afterward. When the 
chicks are three months old the first separation is made; males and 
females are separated, and the chicks that showed their sex fust are 
taken from the rest. This gives me four flocks. From the chicks 
in which the sex element first manifested itself 1 expect to gel my 
best layers. When it is time to put the birds in the winter quarters 
another separation is made — the birds that show they are nearest 
ready to lay are put in pens by themselves. (I do not care for 
precocious pullets, but when pullets have had time to mature the 
ones that are nearest ready to lay are in my judgment the best 
pullets). The final selection for the breeding pens is made when 
birds are about 18 months old — the ones which moult the earliest 
and most rapidly being selected for breeders. Thus by a consistent 
application of the principle of sex selection 1 get my strain. 

With the males the same principle is applied. The birds that 
show their sex the earliest and the most strongly are reserved, and 
the others are killed and sent to the market. Any judge will tell 
you that "good wattles are a sign of a good bird." But besides 
having good wattles a breeding cockerel should have other qualities; 
he should be vigorous, alert, courageous, well grown, with decided 
protuberances on his shanks where later the spurs are to he. In 
other words, he should be strongly sexed. 

I believe that anyone who will consistently and intelligently fol- 
low out the suggestions given in this chapter will see his egg yield 
steadily improve, and that in three breeding seasons, with compara- 
tively little trouble, he will get the 200-egg hen. 

THE LAW OK SEX: MALES OK FEMALES AT WILL. 

One of the most interesting problems that confronts the biolog- 
ist is that of sex. What are the conditions that produce a male 
organism and what the conditions that produce a female? It is 
obvious that in a world where everything is by law sex is not by 
chance, but what the law is we do not fully know. Still many 
facts have been gathered, and we are nearing the goal. The poultry 
business offers a peculiarly favorable field for investigation. When 
you reflect that perfect organisms may be produced in any number 
in the short space of 21 days, that the parent fowls may be kept 
under such conditions as the investigator may wish and that these 
conditions may be varied at will, that the embryo may be followed 
through all the stages of its development, you realize at once what 



50 



a field the poultry business presents for a study of the problem of 
sex, and the business takes on a new dignity and interest. 

Some very important facts bearing on sex have been gathered. 
The point on which investigators are more fully agreed is that 
nutrition has a profound influence upon sex. Beginning with in- 
sects it has been found that if caterpillars are starved before enter- 
ing the chrysalis state the resultant butterflies or moths are males, 
while others of the same brood highly nourished are females. AYitli 
bees, too, the relation between nutrition and sex seems equally well 
established. Experiments with Tadpoles, which were supplied 
with a diet steadily increasing in sumptuousness, showed a steady 
and corresponding increase in the number of females produced. 
The proportion of females to males, which was originally 57 
to 43, rose steadily as the diet became more and more highly 
nutritious, until out of 100 tadpoles 92 were females and 8 males. 
Coming up in the scale of life it has been found that among 
mammals the same principle holds, although of course other in- 
fluences come in more than among the lower orders. 

Another feature that is believed to have an influence upon sex 
is the time of impregnation. The fresher the ovum when fertilized 
the greater the likelihood that the offspring will be a female. If 
this conclusion is correct eggs laid at the beginning of a litter 
should hatch a larger proportion of pullets than eggs laid later. 

The relative age of the parents is believed to affect the sex. 
Where the male parent is the older the offspring are preponder- 
ating^ male, and where the ages are even, or where the mother is 
the superior in age, the preponderance is the other way. I find that 
this is a theory quite generally held. I sometimes receive letters 
from would-be purchase]- asking lor eggs from hens mated with 
cockerels. It is a theory very easy to test, and the reader should 
give it a trial in his yards. 

Temperature is also a feature to be reckoned with. I have 
noticed in my own yards that in the cold months the proportion 
of pullets hatched is smaller than it is later in the season. Take 
the plant lice which multiply so rapidly upon the rose bushes, 
fruit trees, and the like, and which are known to science as 
aphides. ''During the warmth of summer, when food is abundant, 
these insects produce parthenogenetically nothing but females, 
while in the famines of later autumn they give birth to males. In 
striking confirmation of this fact it has been proved that in a con- 
servator} where aphides enjoy perpetual summer, the partheno- 



51 



gentic succession of females continued to go on for four years, and 
stopped only when the temperature was lowered and food dimin- 
ished." 

In my own experiments and observations I have found several 
things influencing sex that I have not found mentioned by the au- 
thorities. One of these is affinity. I have found that where 
there is perfect affinity, and the birds are happy and con- 
tented, the conditions are right for the production of females; but 
where tine birds are not well mated and frequent quarrels ensue 
the offspring are likely to be largely males. Another thing is free- 
dom from disturbance and fear. Where hens are kept stirred up 
by the presence of strangers or shifted frequently from place to 
place their eggs are quite sure to hatch an excess of males. The 
quieter you can keep your hens the more pullets you will get. . 

The greater the number of females to a male the more pullets. 
1 know a man who mated two roosters to 118 hens, and out of 135 
chickens hatched 107 were females. 

Now let me sum up all that has been said in the language of 
another: "Such conditions as deficient or abnormal food, low tem- 
perature, deficient light, moisture and the like, are obviously such 
as would tend to induce a preponderance of waste over repair — a 
katabolic habit of body — and these conditions tend to result in the 
production of males. Similarly, the approved set of factors, such 
as abundant and rich nutrition, abundant light and moisture, favor 
constructive processes, that is, make for an anabolic habit, and 
these conditions result in the production of females. With some 
element of uncertainty we may also include the influence of the age 
and of physiological prime of either sex, and of the period of fertili- 
zation. But the general conclusion is tolerably secure, that in the 
determination of sex influences inducing katabolism (or waste) tend 
to result in the production of males, as those favoring anabolism (or 
repair) similarly increase the probability of females.'*' 

This is the law of sex, so far as it can be stated at present. 



CHAPTER VIII 



The Tra|) Nest and It* Uses. 



Within the past few years the outfit of the poultryman lias 
been enlarged by the addition of the trap nest. As to the practical 
value of these nests there is a wide difference of opinion; on th<e 
one hand they are enthusiastically advocated; on the other they are 
scornfully condemned. The' trap nest needs a judicial appraisal. 
It has been unfortunate in both its enemies and its friends. Many 
of those who have ridiculed it have never tried it, and those who 
have advocated it have too often been those who are interested in 
it in a financial way. 

The principal on which the invention rests is that of the influ- 
ence of heredity. It is a fact well known to all breeders of animals 
that desirable traits may be transmitted, and by careful mating a 
strain may be permanently established. It is a matter of common 
knowledge that in the poultry world some of the most popular 
breeds of to-day have been made within a comparatively recent time 
by the combination of individuals of different varieties. It would 
seem almost axiomatic, therefore, that if one wishes to establish a 
heavy-laying strain he must breed only from heavy layers. In the 
preceding chapter I have told how these layers may be picked out. 
But there is always the possibility that the poultryman may be mis- 
taken. The trap nest box may be used in the breeding pen for a 
time at least to supplement the poultryman's personal observation. 
It is not necessary to use it all the year round, or to use it in all 
the pens; but it may be used at tunc- in certain pens to good ad- 
vantage to ascertain if all the hens arc laying, and to weed our hens 
that are no! doing so well as their owners think they ought, and 
liens that lay small, mis-shapen or poorly-colored eggs. 

The fancier also may make good use of the trap nest in the 
breeding season, to enable him to select the eggs of individual lay- 
ers. He may have in a pen a hen of unusual beautv or excellence, 
the offspring of which he desires to keep for his own use. The trap 
nest will enable him to pick out the eggs this hen lays, and then by 
markings on the feet of chicks hatched from these eggs it is easy 
to tell them from the rest. 



53 



THE GOWELL TKAP NEST. 

There are many trap nests on the market. The right to use 
these nests, with plans for their construction, costs from one to 
three dollars. Through the courtesy of Mr. G. M. Gowell, agricul- 
turist of the Maine Experiment Station, 1 am able to present my 
readers with the plan for a nest box free of charge. The nest box 
here described was made bv Mr. <iowell after a careful study of the 




single Nest Box. 

various nest boxes on the market, and is intended to combine their 
excellences and avoid their defects. This is the box that is illus- 
trated here, and the description of it is in Mr. GowelFs own words: 
"The nest box is very simple, inexpensive, easy to attend, and 
certain in its action. It is a box-like structure, without end or 
cover, and is twenty-eight inches long, thirteen inches wide and 
thirteen inches deep — inside measurements. A division board with 



54 



a circular opening seven and one-half inches in diameter is placed 
across the box twelve inches from the hack end and fifteen inches 
from the front end. The bach section is the nest proper. Instead 
of a close door at the entrance, a ligh/t frame of inch by inch and 
half stuff is covered with wire netting of one-inch mesh. The door 
is ten and one-half inches wide and ten inches high and does not 
till the entire entrance, a space of two and a half inches being left 
at the bottom and one and a half inches at the top. with a good 
margin at each side to avoid friction. If it filled the entire space 
it would be clumsy in its action. It is hinged at the top and opens 
up into the box. The hinges are placed on the front of the door 
rather than at the center or back, the better to secure complete 
closing action. 

"The trip consists of one piece of stiff wire about th/ree-six- 
teenths of an inch in diameter and eighteen and one-half inches 
long, bent as shown in drawing. A piece of board six inches wide 







1 1 in. 


c 




Trip wire. 


CO 


1 in. ^ 





and just long enough to reach across the box inside is nailed Hat- 
wise in front of the partition and one inch below the top of the 
box, a space of one-fourth of an inch, being left between the edge 
of the board and the partition. The purpose of this board is only 
to support the trip wire in place. The six-inch section of the trip 
wire is placed across the board and the long part o! the wire slipped 
through the quarter-inch slot, and passed down close to and in front 
of the center of the seven and a half inch circular opening. Small 
wire staples are driven nearly down over the six-inch section of the 
trip wire into the board so as to hold it in place and yet let it roll 
sidewise easily. 

''When the door is set, the half-inch section of the wire marked 
A comes under a hard wood peg or a tack with a large round head, 
which is driven into the lower edge of the door frame. The hen 
passes in through the circular opening and in doing so presses the 
wire to one side, and the trip slips from its connection with the 



55 



door. The door promptly swings down and fastens itself in place 
by its lower edge, striking the Light end of a wooden Latch or lever, 
pressing it down and slipping over it: the lever immediately coming 
back into place and Locking the door. Tlie latch, is five inches Long, 
one inch wide and a half inch thick, and is fastened loosely one 
inch from its center to the side of the box, si, that the outer end is- 
just inside the door when it is closed. The Latch acts quickly 
enough to catch the door before it rebounds. It was feared that 
the noise arising from the closing of the door might startle the 
hens, so instead of wooden stops pieces of old rubber belting were 
nailed at the outside entrances for the door to strike against. 

"The double box witli nest in the rear end is accessary, as 
wlien a bird has laid and desire- to leave the nest, she steps to the 
front and remains there until released. With one section only,, 
she would he Likely to crush the egg by standing upon it." 




Nest Boxes in Position, 



CHAPTER IX. 



Breeding for Two Hundred Eggs a Vear. 



Most of our domestic animals ami birds are descendants of 
smno wild prototype. In the zoological gardens of Hamburg and 
New York are living specimens of the primitive wild horse of Cen- 
tral Asia — funny, big-headed little brutes that are representatives 
of some type of horse that must be hundreds of thousands of years 
old. Dogs arc descendants of wolves and jackals and perhaps of 
one or two species of wild dogs that have become extinct. Pigeons 
trace their ancestr) back to the rock pigeon, which has a vast range 
from Northern and Eastern Europe to the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, to Madeira and the Canary Islands, to Abyssinia, India and 
Japan. 

For the prototype of our domestic fowl we must go to Asia, 
and especially to Northern India, where the Himalayas lift their 
«nowy crests far up into the sky. Here we shall find a bird running 
wild through the dense forests and jungles, which is believed to be 
identical with the parent type from which all domestic fowls have 
come. The bird closely resembles the black-breasted Indian Game, 
with which we are all familiar, albeit somewhat smaller in size and 
carrying the tad more horizontally. From this bird have come all 
the varieties of our domestic fowls — the stately Spanish, the crested 
Polish, tfoe lordly Brahma, the elegant Leghorn, the practical Ply- 
mouth Pock, tbe snowy Wyandotte and the diminutive Bantam. 
Natural and artificial selection, continued for many years, has cre- 
ated all these differences. 

Even more remarkable than the difference in plumage and form 
that have been brought about by breeding is the difference in egg 
production. Callus Bankiva, as this wild jungle fowl is called, lays 
from six to ten eggs a year, while some of our domestic fowls have 
keen known to lav over 300. This vast increase in egg production 
has been brought about by improved nutrition and by breeding 
from prolific layers. In other chapters I have emphasized suffi- 
ciently the importance of care and feeding in egg production; in 
this I wish to call attention to the subject of breeding. 



57 



THE THREE LAWS OK PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING RE- 
PRODUCTION. 

Breeders now recognize three laws or principles underlying the 
whole subject of reproduction. 1. Inheritance. By inheritance 
is meant the tendency of parents to repeat themselves in their off- 
spring, and of offspring to resemble their parents. It is because of 
this law of inheritance that anything like scientific breeding is pos- 
sible. If parents did not have a proclivity to repeat themselves in 
their offspring and if offspring did not have a proclivity to resemble 
their parents, the breeder might well abandon his task as hopeless. 
2. Variation. By variation is meant the tendency of offspring to 
differ from the parents. The infant is never an exact copy of the 
father or mother; it possesses an independent individuality of its 
own. Thus the product of A and B is never A or B, even AB or 
BA; it is AB plux X; in other words there enters in an unknown 
element to influence the result. It is this law of variation that 
makes it possible to improve the species; the parents may be so 
mated that the offspring will be better and stronger than either one 
of them. 3. Reversion. There is a propensity to go backward as 
well as forward — to return to some primitive type. Where mating 
is indiscriminate the tendency to reversion is very strong. 

BREED FROM YOUR BEST BIRDS. 

We have now reached tin: point where it is possible to formu- 
late some rules for breeding. The first is this: Breed from your 
best birds. By best birds I mean birds that will best enable you 
to reach your ideal. If your ideal is beauty breed from birds that 
will give you beauty; if your ideal is utility breed from birds that 
will give you utility. We now see why it is so difficult to have a 
show bird and an egg bird in the same specimen. The breeder 
must sacrifice somewhere — either on the score card or the egg rec- 
ord. It is possible to have a good looker and a good layer in the 
same bird; but I do not believe that it is possible to have a bird 
that will win in Boston, New York or Chicago, and at the same 
time lay 200 eggs a year. The reader must make his choice. I 
have made mine. Utility first, beauty afterward. I like to see a 
beautiful bird as well as any one, but I can't afford to breed for 
plumage and points. My White Wyandottes sometimes show some 
brass; they stand higher than I like; but they will lay— summer 



58 



and winter, hot or cold, wet or dry — lav so thai I sometimes fear 
they will lav themselves to death They are a money-making prop- 
osition for me and for my customers, even if they cannot win at 
tlic big shows. 

BREED Vli<>\\ MATT' HE BIRDS 

The only bird lit to breed from is one that is in good health 
and thoroughly mature. Probably the bcsl mating is a vigorous. 
well-grown cockerel with year-old liens; next to that a cock with 
mature pullets. A pullet should have laid out at least one litter- 
before she is put into a breeding pen. Even then it is better not 
to use her, if you can help it. There is no surer way of running 
out a Hock than to breed from immature hud-. 

THE MALE. 

You often hear il said that '"the rooster i- half the pen." It is 
meant by this that one-half the blood of the offspring will come 
from the male side. Such being the case it is highly important 
that the cock or cockerel should he a good bird. A few para- 
graphs back I spoke of the fact that the hen in her wild state laid 
from six to ten eggs a year. The average farmers hen lays from 
7£ to l" 1 ' ".ans in the same time. What has made the increase?' 
It has come, as 1 have said, from improved nutrition and from 
selection. But the selection has all been on the male side! It is 
the practice on the farm, and I doubt not has been for generations, 
to keep the best male to breed from, but to breed indiscriminately 
from the females. The fact that under such haphazard methods 
of keeping fowls as have prevailed in the past, egg production has 
increased tenfold, is a remarkable tribute to the value of the male 
as an agent in building up the egg yield. 

CONCERNING CROSSES. 

You will find a strong tendency on the part ol the average 
poultry keeper to mis up his birds. If he gets a flock of fowls 
that begin to look- alike, ten to one he will buy a rooster of a 
neighbor fm a dollar of some entirely different breed, and the re- 
sult will be that the next fall he will have a whole poultry show on 
has hands. There is a popular belief that crosses lay better than 
thoroughbreds, and the method of procedure is to mix up the birds 
as much as possible. 

This whole subject of crossing needs to be better understood. 
Some good must comi from crossing, or it would not be so uni- 



59 

versally practiced. Where does ii come from? It comes from the 
invigoration thai alway> follows the introduction of new blood. 

The cross-breed pullet lavs better than its mother because ii is 
larger and stronger — it can eat ami assimilate more and stand the 
strain of egg production better. The average farmer's flock is con- 
stantly running out. He does not breed from bis best. The in- 
troduction of new blood counteracts this tendency. Consequently 
the farmer is converted to a belief in the superiority of the cross. 

But when yon go beyond tbe first cross — when you criss-cross, 
as they say — yo\i strike another tendency — the tendency to rever- 
sion. Tbe mixing up of bloods results in bringing out ancestral 
characters. Tbe criss-cross is not. far removed from the red jungle 
fowl, and there inevitably comes a drop in egg production. 

All the valuable results that come from crossing can 'he secured 
by the occasional infusion of new blood from a male of tbe same 
biced as your own. and the breed may be kept more pure. It is not 
necessary to introduce new blood oftener than once in two years. 
Suppose you send away for a cockerel this fall. Tbe first mating 
will be with birds with which he is entirely unrelated. Next fall 
mate him to the best pullets of his own get. and take the best 
cockerel to mate with the hens in the other breeding pen. If you 
find a strain of birds that you like follow along with the breeder, 
getting a male from has yards every two years. 

Breeders for fancy points breed in and in, and have a chart of 
matings that is as intricate as a bicycle road map. It is impossible 
to produce show birds that will win m the hottest competition 
without in and in breeding. Rut tbe reader of this book has no 
necessity to resort to any such procedure — that is, if he is after 
eggs fit si and not feathers and frills. 

FERTILE EGGS AND HOW TO GET THEM. 

To get fertile eggs three thdngs are necessary — maturity, vital- 
ity, comfort. The conditions in tbe breeding pen must be such as 
to promote maximum vitality. Where the male is immature, where 
the house is so cold that the food eaten goes to maintain the caloric, 
where the fowls are alive with vet mm or rotten with disease, the 
fertility will be low. Inbreeding also tends to infertility. So 
does lack of exercise and overfat condition of fowls in the breeding 
pen. 

Doubtless diet has an important effect upon fertility. Unless 
every element needed for tbe embryo is present, tbe egg will be 



60 



infertile or the chick will die in the shell. There are some kinds 
of food thai stimulate the genital organs and promote sexual 
activity. Raw onions chopped fine and fed in the mash twice a 
wtek are excellent during the breeding season. Clover is also a 
valuable food for fertility. 

Where fertile eggs are wanted the hen must not be pushed too 
hard for egg production. My own method is to push my pullets 
the first year. I reserve the best layers to breed from, and do not 
push them the second year; but let them take things easy. They 
have made their record ami deserve a rest. When the breeding 
season comes they are in prime condition, and lay large, highly 
colored eggs which batch hardy chicks. 

It pays to alternate males where high fertility is desired, allow- 
ing three males for two pens, keeping two in active service and 
the third shut up to rest. Cocks have their favorites, and where 
one male runs with a flock some hens are neglected: but wh*ere 
males are alternated all are likelv to be served. 

Mam eggs i'ail to batch because they are not properly cared 
for. It tikes hut little to kill the germ. One reason farmers get 
such poor results in winter is that they are not careful to gather 
their eggs several times a day. The opinion is common among 
them that an egg must he frozen hard enough to crack the shell 
before it is unfit to put under a hen. Eggs should be gathered 
when warm and kept in a temperature of from 40 to 60 degrees. 
In shipping eggs to customers they should be moved in the middle 
of the day and protected from extremes of temperature as much as 
possible. 

WHY EGGS AEE NOT FEETILE IN WINTER. 

Almost every winter some person of my acquaintance buys an 
incubator and starts in to raise broilers for the city market. The 
result is inevitably disappointment. The percentage of fertility is 
so low and the mortality among the chicks so great, that the books 
show a loss instead of a profit at the end of the season. The rea- 
son why the fertility is so low in winter is purely physiological. 
"The testicles of birds vary greatly in size according to the season 
of the year in which they are observed. In winter they are very 
small, with a comparatively insignificant blood supply; but in 
spring, as the breeding season comes on, they enlarge to five or ten 
times the weight during winter, the vessels are distended with 
blood and the height of functional activity is reached.'* To get 
fertile eggs in winter, therefore, the house must be warm, or eggs 
must be imported from the South. 



CHAPTER X. 



Incubation -Artificial and Natural. 



As the poultry business is now conducted it is the practice for 
each poultryman to get out enough chicks in the spring to supply 
him with layers in the fall. There is no reason, however, why the 
great law of specialization should not obtain in the poultry business 
as in nearly every other, and why in the future we should not have 
entire plants devoted to the rearing of young stock and other 
plants devoted wholly to the production of eggs. At present, how- 
ever, it is necessary for the poultryman to know how to raise his 
own chicks, if he wishes to succeed. 

It is a good rule on a poultry farm to have at least two-thirds 
of the laying stock pullets. Suppose then a man intends to keep 
300 head of laying stock always on hand — it will be necessary for 
him to get out at least 600 chicks. Of these one-half (or 300) are 
likely to be males: so that at the start he will have but 300 females. 
The poultryman must count on some deaths by disease and acci- 
dent. There will he some weak ones that are better off put out of 
the way. Thien he should watch his flock carefully and cull closely. 
according to the principles laid down in Chapter VII. The man 
who gets out 600 chicks in the spring will be lucky if he has 200 
standard bred pullets in the fall. 

CSE LEG BANDS. 

Pullets when they are put in the laying pens should be marked 
with leg bands. It is not necessary to use bands with numbers; 
plain bands are just as good. It is my personal practice to mark 
birds hatched in the even years (years that can be divided by two) 
with a band on the right leg; and birds that are hatched in the 
odd years (years that cannot be divided by two) with a band on 
the left leg. In this way I can always tell at a glance jii>i how 
old a bird i>. and never confuse a pullet and a year-old hen. 

INCUBATOE OR HEN, WHICH? 

Sooner or later the poultryman must face the question with 
which this paragraph is headed, and it is my purpose no^ to help 
him to an answer. In this matter, as in most others, then is 



62 



something- to be said on both sides. In favor of the natural 
method there is first of all economy. It costs at least $25 to install 
an outfit for artificial incubation, and this is an expense that many 
can ill afford. Chickens brooded by liens have more stamina and 
arc subject to fewer diseases than chickens brooded in any other 
way. There is no mother for a brood of young chickens that can 
equal an old hen. Some of the most progressive poultrymen in 
the country use hens exclusively, setting hundreds of them at a 
time. 

The disadvantage of the natural method is that it is never com- 
pletely under one's control. Whatever mental qualities a hen may 
or may not possess, she has a full-grown, large-sized will; and no 
method has yet been discovered to make a hen sit when she does 
not want to. To realize the largest profits in poultry, chickens 
musi he hatched early and kept growing from the day they leave 
the shell. It is not always possible to have a supply of sitting hens 
on hand. The sitting hen is liable to leave her nest before her 
task is done, and no amount of persuasion will induce her to re- 
turn. Sometimes she crushes eggs or young chicks under her 
clumsy feet. At the best she can bring out but a few chickens at a 
time. After a while the up-to-date poultryman is almost certain 
to come to the conclusion that he must have an incubator. 

The advantage of the artificial method is that it is so com- 
pletely under one's control. The incubator may be started at any 
time. The best machines are so adjusted that the element of 
chance is practically eliminated, and every fertile egg may be in- 
cubated. The trouble comes in rearing the chickens. Brooder 
chickens require much more attention and are more subject to dis- 
ease than chickens brooded under hens. The per cent, of loss is 
greater. Especially among beginners there is sometimes a 
"-laughter of the innocents" that is frightful. 

To sum up: If one wants early chickens and wants them in 
quantities and has the time to give to them, he should by all means 
gel an incubator. Otherwise he would best stick to the hen. 

GET A GOOD lN T OrBAT()E Oil \0\ T E. 

In purchasing an incubator remember that the besl i- the 
cheapest. A poor machine is dear at any price. Beware of the 
home-made incubator. Sometimes they work satisfactorilv, but 
oftener they do not. I know a young man of more than ordinary 
ingenuity who constructed an incubator from plans that he found 



63 



in a paper. By visiting the machine at intervals during the day 
and by getting up two or three times a nigh.1 to trim the lamp or 
to pull out plugs so that the surplus heat might escape, he was 
able to keep the temperature somewhere near where it ought to he. 
But one warm Sum lay, while he was at church, the temperature 
took a leap upward, ami when he returned at noon the thermometer 
registered 120 degrees. As a consequence 180 chickens were pre- 
maturely roasted, and nearly three weeks of valuable time lost. 
The young man has lost confidence in incubators, and now hatches 
his chickens with hens. An incubator should be bought at least 
a month before it is to he started on eggs, in order that the operator 
may become thoroughly familiar with the machine and know how 
to run it right. 

A NATURAL HEN" INCUBATOR. 

The work of caring for sitting hens may be greatly reduced by 
'the construction of what 1 may call a natural hen incubator, the 
design for which is shown here. 

This natural hen incubator may be of any length; but should 
be two feet deep, two feet high, and divided into compartments 18 




A Natural Hen Cncubator. 



inches wide. Some prefer a door to each compartment, but I find 
it more convenient to have the doors somewhat longer, so that one 
may enclose a number of divisions. The top should be hinged at 
the back, so that it can be lifted up if desired, as shown in the cut; 
but ordinarily it is shut down. The door in front is covered with 
chicken wire. Each, compartment should be in two divisions, so 
if a lien wishes to leave her nest temporarily she can do so. 

If possible, enough hens should be set at one time to utilize 
all the compartments behind a door. The door should be kept 
latched except in the morning when it is opened, the hens taken 



64 



off, fed and watered and left to dust. In from 10 to 20 minutes, 
according to the weather, the hens should he driven back. As the 
hens are all set at the same time it makes no difference which com- 
partment a hen enters. She will find epos ready for her. 

THE SITTING HEN. 

Where incubation is carried on by the natural method it is im- 
portant to have a supply of sitting hens on hand in March. April 
and May. in order that the chicks may be hatched early. While it 
is hue thai no method has yet been discovered to make a hen sit 
at will, it is also true that the instinct may be encouraged. As 
soon as we understand the philosophy of incubation we may go to 
work to bring about the desired result. In a state of Nature when 
does the hen sit? In summer. Why in summer? Because the- 
reproductive instinct has been stimulated by the hot weather. Be- 
cause she has laid her litter out. Because she has become fat and 
sluggish. It is evident that if we can reproduce these conditions. 
we can hasten incubation. 

Old hens make the best sitters, because they are not so active as. 
young ones. The treatment of hens that are kept for sitters should 
be radically different from the treatment of hens that are kept for 
layers. They should be confined more closely and fed differently. 
Corn should be form an important part of their food. As soon as 
a hen shows symptoms of broodiness she should be encouraged. 
She should be taken at night and placed in a nest prepared for her 
in a dark, quiet place. This nest should contain china eggs, and 
should be covered with a burlap bag to make it dark. The next 
morning the bag should be removed and the hen let out for food 
and water. If she goes back it is safe to entrust her with real 
eggs. 

The comfort of a sitting ben should be scrupulously looked 
after. Before she is placed on the nest she should be thoroughly 
dusted v i tli some good insect powder and again just before she- 
brings off her brood. She should be taken off the nest, fed and 
watered and given a chance to dust herself every day. Sitting hens 
should be led on whole corn, as that is slowly digested and is a 
beat-forming food. 

TESTING THE EGGS. 

While it is essential that the sitters be kept as quiet as possible,, 
yet it is important that the eggs be tested once or twice during the- 



65 



period of incubation. Egg testers ran be purchased at a Low pi ice 
from the manufacturers of incubators or at poultry supply store-. 
Eggs must be tested in a dark room or at night. The first test 
should be made at the expiration of seven days. If the egg, when 
looked at in the tester, is clear, it is infertile and should be re- 
moved from the nest. If the egg when looked at is cloudy or 
dark, with a well defined air space at the big end, incubation has 
begun. The water test, described in the next section, should be 
made on the 19th day, and eggs with dead germs in them taken out. 

THE WATER TEST. 

Where a sitting hen does not have a chance to get out doors, 
her owner should snpph'' moisture to make good the loss to the eggs 
by evaporation. Eggs should be sprinkled on the 7th and on the 
14th day. Remove the hen from the nest and with a whisk broom 
sprinkle the eggs thoroughly with water of a temperature of 95 de- 
grees. On the 19th day the eggs should be given a bath. Fill a 
pail with water of the temperature of 95 degrees, and after it has 
become still drop the eggs in it one by one, letting them remain 
from one to three minutes. If there is a lively chick in the egg in 
a minute or two it will begin to bob up and down as a float does on 
the water when a fish is nibbling at the bait below. Take the egg 
out and put it back in the nest, wiping it with a towel if it is win- 
ter, but letting the surplus water remain if it is summer. In case 
an egg does not show any movement after being in the water three 
minutes — if it does not "jump" — you might as well throw it away, 
as it will not incubate. Chicks from eggs treated in this way come 
out strong and clean and make a surprising growth. 



CHAPTER XL 



Chicks and Their Care. 



Poultry keeping is not with me a means of livelihood, but is 
more in the nature of a recreation. It is a matter of personal pride 
with me, however, to make poultry keeping pay. I do not at pres- 
ent get out my own chicks, but supply eggs to those who have a 
knack for the business and let them hatch, chicks for nre and keep 
them until they are weaned. Then I select what I want in accord- 
ance with the principles laid down in Chapter VII. People often 
wonder how I get such a growth on my chicks after I take them 
into my hands. The reason is very simple. I select only as many 
chicks as I have room for and 1 keen chicks of the same age to- 
gether. The average poultry keeper gets out altogether too many 
chicks. There is a temntation when eggs are hatching well to se1 
every hen that is broody or to fill up the incubator just once more. 
There is plenty of room for the chicks at first, but as they grow 
older they are crowded and do not do so well as they ought. Then 
when chicks of different ages are left together, there is too much 
"rough house" for the younger ones and they become stunted. If 
you want fine birds get out only as many chicks as you have room 
for, divide them into small flocks, and keep chicks of the same age 
by themselves. 

WHY NOT INSTALL A BROODER? 

Even where an incubator is not employed a brooder may be in- 
stalled to good advantage. I know a man who gets out in the 
neighborhood of 1,000 chicks every spring — hatching them all un- 
der hens and brooding them in brooders. I am as great an ad- 
mirer of the American hen as any other man, but I confess that 
her conduct as a mother is often not such as to impress me with nn 
exalted opinion of her mentality. 

The best brooder, in my opinion, is one built for 100 chicks, 
and costing about $12, just as the best incubator is one built for 
200 eggs or thereabouts. The out-door brooder is not generally 
satisfactory, as it is difficult to keep chicks warm enough in it when 
the temperature ranges low. The brooder should be placed in a 
brooder house, and there is no better brooder house in my opinion 
than the colony community house described in Chapter II. 



67 



Be sure to set the brooder where the sun will tioi shine on it, 
in installing it in a house, and do not pu1 more than 60 chicks in a 
100-chick brooder. 

REMOVING CHICKS TO BROODER. 

We will now assume that the period of incubation is completed, 
and that the chicks are ready to be removed from the nest. It is 
24 hours at least since the last chick broke the shell, and may be 
48 hours since the first hardy pioneer made his entrance into our 
sinful world. I assume that two or three times while the chicks 
were hatching you gently lifted up the mother hen and removed 
the fragments of broken egg shell from the nest. 

And now comes the most important and in some ways the most 
disagreeable part of the whole business — the transfer of the chfccks 
from the nest to the brooder, which may be some distance away. 
You cannot choose your day — it may be cold or it may be warm — 
but you can choose the warmest part of it for your purpose. Bet- 
ter take your wife with you, if you are fortunate enough to have 
one. Take a shallow basket, such as is used for marketing, and 
line thie bottom with a piece of old woolen blanket, which has pre- 
viously been warmed. Over this lay another piece of warmed 
blanket, to put over the chickens when they are placed in the 
basket. 

As each chicken is taken out from under the hen anoint its 
head lightly with lard or vaseline, to kill head lice, and place it 
quickly in the basket. When the basket is full take the chicks to 
the brooder house and place them in the hover, which has been 
brought to a temperature of 100 degrees. 

If you are a man of tender sensibilities you will feel as if you 
were a kidnapper or a manstealer when you take the chicks away 
from their mother. You will feel, as one man expressed it to me, 
"too mean to look a hen in the face." But, fortunately, the hen 
does not suffer long — she soon forgets. Place her in a bright, 
sunny pen where there are other hens and a male, supply her with 
more varied food than she has been accustomed to during the 
period of incubation, and in a W days she will be scratching and 
singing as merrily as of yore 

TWO SECRETS OF SUCCESS— HEAT AND FEEDING. 

Th/G two great secrets of success in raising brooder chicks are 
proper heat and proper feeding. The heat should come from over- 
head, as this is the most natural method, and should be hot air 



68 



Bear in mind that the young chick needs a great deal of heat. Ee 
has come from a warm place — the temperature of his mother's 
body being 103 degrees. For the first two or three days the tem- 
perature in the brooder should he 95 degrees; then it may be grad- 
ually lowered, as the chicks grow, until it drops to 80 degrees if 
the weather is warm and pleasant. "The best rule to follow is to 
observe the chicks. ... If they arrange themselves at the 
edge of the brooder, and separate, by spreading out, the heat will 
be just what they desire. If too cool they will come closely to- 
gether and crowd. Many operators have left their chicks ap- 
parently contented at night, only to find in the morning some of 
them dead under the brooder, because the heat lowered and the 
chicks trampled among themselves in the effort to secure more 
warmth, and this, too. when (to the operator) there seemed to be 
sufficient. " 

CARE OF THE BROODER. 

The brooder is to be the home of the chicks until they are al 
least six weeks old. It is a good idea to keep the brooder in the 
brooder house until August, and the on the cold, wet days which 
we sometimes have in summer give the chicks a little heat. The 
floor of the brooder should be kept sprinkled with sand, and 
should lie cleaned every morning. The floor of the brooder house 
should also be kept covered with clean sand, and the windows 
should be opened every warm and sunny day. There is no hurry 
to get the chicks out on the ground; indeed, it is better for them 
to spend the first four weeks of their lives indoors. 

The brooder should be enclosed with a low fence of boards for 
the first few days, so that the chicks cannot get far away. They 
should be given their first feeds in the brooder and watered there, 
but in a little while the feed tray and fountain may be placed out- 
side the brooder, but close to it. Grit of some kind should be 
supplied. 

HOW TO FEED BROODER CHICKS. 

. My method of feeding brooder chicks is as follows: The first 
week or ten days I feed rolled oats and nothing else — just the 
same kind of rolled oats that I use on my own table. I feed them 
dry. I feed them in little troughs' made for the purpose, and keep 
oats before the chicks all the time. Every day or two I take the 
(roughs and empty the oats remaining in them into the hens' dish, 



69 



and brush out the troughs with a whisk broom. It may seem 
extravagant to feed rolled oats at five cents a pound, but I believe 
the foundation of a clink'- constitution and future growth is Laid 
in the first few weeks of its life, and it is cheaper in the end to 
feed as I do and have the chicks live and thrive than to leed some- 
thing else and have them stunted and die. 

At the end of a week or ten days I begin to introduce a little 
variety. I take wheat and cracked corn — one part wheat to two 
parts corn — and feed a small quantity of this in place of the rolled 
oats. I increase the quantity of wheat and corn from dav 10 day 
and decrease the quantity of rolled oats, so that when the chicks 
are a month old I have weaned them from the rolled oats and am 
feeding them on whole wheat and cracked corn. When the chicks 
are ten days old I begin to give them green food — a little at first, 
but increasing in amount from day to day. I feed onion tops, 
cabbage chopped fine, clover tips, or if I can get nothing better a 
potato baked and cut in two. I give meat in small quantities two 
or three times a week. Into a kettle of boiling water I put a 
piece of cheap meat or a soup bone with considerable meat adher- 
ing, and keep it there until well cooked. Then I pour off the 
liquid and take the meat and chop it into fine bits, or grind up the 
bone in my bone cutter, and throw a little to the chicks. They eat 
it greedily. I put a little salt in the water so that it will get into 
the fibres of the meat, because I think chicks need a certain 
amount of salt. 

I feed in this way until the chicks are "feathered out," when 
I begin to feed them much as I do my hens — a warm mash, and 
two or three feeds of grain a day. Until my chicks are "feathered 
out" I keep food before them all the time, letting them help them- 
selves when they will. I ought to add that I am careful to keep 
cool, fresh water befor them from the very first, and also charcoal 
and grit. 

BROODER CHICKS— WHAT ANOTHER MAN THINKS. 

Writes C. A. Stone in the Poultry Standard: "I generally leave 
the chicks in the incubator about 24 hours after they are practic- 
ally through hatching, and meanwhile heat a brooder to 95 degrees 
for about every 50 or GO chicks. At first I strew the front of the 
brooder with fine grit, and then give them bread crumbs or wheat 
screenings or Cyphers Chick Food for their first feed — just what 
they will eat up clean — and give them all the water they want. I 



70 



generally feed abcmi five times a day the first two or three days, 
and gradually drop off to three feeds at three weeks. However, 
after the first two or three days I scatter their feed in a little litter, 
and make them hustle for it. Nothing under the sun will kill 
young chicks quicker than stuffing them and letting them stand 
around. I also give them green food of some sort and every two 
or three days a mash containing <s per cent, or 10 per cent, of meal 
meal. But above all tilings keep them hustling. 

"After the first two days I drop the temperature to 90 degrees. 
] aim to get the heat down to SO degrees in the first week and a 
half and to 70 degrees in eight or ten davs more. As near as I can 
I mean to drop the temperature about one degree a day until TO 
is reached. 

"For myself I use outdoor brooders mostly, and while we can- 
not maintain a uniform heat, by close watching we can keep a com- 
paratively even temperature, as my experience is that after a chick 
has been chilled or over-heated it is poor property. I believe in 
getting them on the ground as soon as possible after the chicks 
learn to run in and out of the warm part of the brooder, and very 
frequently am obliged to shovel snow out of the brooder runs. 
But a chick will stand a lot of cold if he keeps on the move. Of 
course they must be watched closely in cold weather and if they 
show signs of huddling shut in until thoroughly warmed. 

"Some of my best flocks have been raised on wheat screenings 
alone, but I have had good success with some of the prepared 
chick foods. We must be govt mod by the season of year in mov- 
ing to the cool brooder, as early chicks musl be supplied with heat 
a long time; but along in the latter part of April 1 get them hard- 
ened to go without heat in about three weeks. At this age they 
are practically past the danger point, and if kept free from lice 
and given proper care will live and thrive.'" 

WHEN CHICKS ABE BA1SED fN THE GOOD OLD WAV. 

There are many who prefer the ••good old way"" of brooding 
by hens, and to them recommend the following from the pen of 
my good friend, Mr. A. F. Hunter: "For the first 24 hours after 
hatching chicks do not need food, as the portion of yolk that has 
just been taken into the abdomen has not been fully digested; and 
then, too, the chick should get accustomed to the fact that he has 
'just been borned 5 before his little crop is started on its seldom 
empty journey through life. When the hatch comes off let the- 



71 



little fellows have a drink of pure fresh water (not too cold); this 
invigorates them and helps clear the digestive organs of the waste 
from digested yolk. 

"The first food should be bread crumbs and haid boiled egg, or 
johnnycake. To each pint of food add a sprinkling of chicken 
grit. The food for the first few weeks should be johnnycake, 
rolled oats, coarse oatmeal and bread or cracker crumbs. A little 
well cooked meat finely minced three times a week, and a liberal 
supply of fresh green food, grit, charcoal and pure water are essen- 
tial to health. When the chicks get to be six weeks old they 
should have a cooked mash for supper six nights in the week. 
For other food they should have hulled oat--, wheat and a little 
cracked corn — fresh green food always. 

"From the first have a litter of chaff or cut clover and sand for 
the chicks to scratch in; exercise is essential to good digestion. 
Give them sunny quarters, and provide a shelter in case the sun is 
too hot, and for protection in stormy weather. When warm 
weather comes be sure that they can have plenty of freedom and 
exercise on the green bosom of 'Old Mother Earth.' Keep them 
busy, happy and hungry. Be careful not to overfeed. If you 
must coop them up, make the coops large enough to give them 
plenty of room to exercise and grow. Change the location of 
such coops often, to give them fresh ground to run on."' 

WHEN TO HATCH THE CHICKS. 

Chicks of the Asiatic breeds should be hatched in March, chicks 
of the American breeds in April, and chicks of the Mediterranean 
breeds in May, for winter egg production. Poultrymen who want 
eggs all the year round will do well to keep getting out chicks from 
March to June and then start in again in September. Josh Bill- 
ings quaintly says that "the best time tew set a hen iz when she 
wants tew set," and the man who has the facilities for taking care 
of them will find that chicks hatched at almost any season of the 
year will not come in amiss. I have known White Wyandotte 
pullets of my strain, hatched in August, to begin laying in Janu- 
ary, when in the same pen were pullets of other breeds hatched 
months before that had not begun to lay. 



CHAPTER XII. 



Some of the More Common Poultry Diseases. 



There are comparatively few diseases that need give the poultry 
keeper much alarm. I have heard it said that our domestic fowls 
are subject to as many diseases as human beings. But if this is so 
(which I greatly doubt) many of these diseases are so rare that 
(hey need not be taken into consideration. In this chapter I shall 
'mention only the more common ailments — and give some rules for 
their treatment. 

HOW TO DISCOVER THE BEGINNINGS OF SICKNESS. 

There are four ways by which the poultryman may discover the 
beginnings of sickness. 1. General appearance. A fowl in 
health is alert and active, plumage smooth, comb red, eye bright 
and clear, appetite good. A sick fowl is generally dumpish, 
plumage rough, comb pale or purple, appetite poor. 2. Respira- 
tion. Certain kinds of disease affect the respiratory organs and 
manifest themselves in the breathing. The best time to detect 
disease of this sort is after the birds have gone to roost. If the 
birds on the roost sneeze from time to time, if the breathing is 
labored, if there is a rattling, bubbling or snoring sound, something 
is wrong and needs attention. 3. Excrement. The excrement 
is a pretty good index of the health of a hen. Where the bird is in 
perfect health the excrement is dark green in color, tipped with 
white, somewhat moist. Where the excrement is soft and watery 
the digestion is disturbed. Where it is light green in color there 
is danger of serious trouble. If upon examination the excrement 
shows that considerable food is passing through undigested, the 
bird needs to be supplied with grit. 4. Odor. Some kinds of 
disease — especially roup — are accompanied by an offensive odor, 
and can at once be detected by the smell. 

SEGREGATE SICK BIRDS. 

I would advise all poultrymen to fit up a small building for a 
hospital, to which all sick fowls may at once be removed. In the 
case of a contagious disease this is especially important, for the 
sick bird if allowed to remain with the rest may communicate the 



73 



disease to the whole flock. Kven where the disease is aol serious, 
the patient is much better off il by herself. The hospital should 
be kept scrupulously clean, and should be thoroughly disinfected 
after a bird has been confined in it affected with any serious 
trouble. 

DISEASES OF CHICKS. 

Lice. — In the chapter on "Chicks and Their Care/' 1 have 
warned the breeder to be on the lookout for lice. I repeat the 
warning- here. More chicks are sacrificed in this way than in 
any other. Even if the chick is not literally eaten alive its vitality 
is often so much reduced that it readily falls a prey to disease. It 
is never safe to give up the warfare against lice. 

Cramps and Rheumatism. — Many persons who get out early 
-chicks have no proper facilities for handling them. Perhaps there 
is snow on the ground and the chicks cannot get out of doors, so 
they are left on a board floor or in a crowded brooder, and in a few- 
days their legs begin to draw up, the joints become red and swollen, 
and the little things die. When cramps and rheumatism get 
among the chicks transfer at once to dry and roomy quarters where 
their feet can get on the earth, give green food in variety, and rub 
their legs with witch hazel. Sprinkle chaff about so that the chicks 
will have to scratch for their food. Reduce the number of chicks 
in the brooder, if crowded. Give as much baking soda as you can 
get on the tip of the handle of a teaspoon, in a quart of water. 

Leg Weakness. — Where young fowls are forced forward for 
broilers or soft roasters they are apt to develop leg weakness, the 
nature of which is sufficiently explained by the name. The bird 
walks unsteadily, lurching from side to side, and sometimes sits 
when eating its food. "In all cases give cooling food, such as bran, 
barley, rice, green food, skim milk or buttermilk and vegetables. 
Avoid condiments, meat and stimulating rations of all kinds." 

Capes.— "Gapes are caused by small worms which attach them- 
selves to the membranes of the windpipe of the chick. A piece of 
■camphor about the size of a grain of wheat, daily, and 10 drops of 
camphor or turpentine to each pint of drinking water, is a favor- 
ite and effective remedy." The tip of a feather dipped in turpen- 
tine and run down the chick's throat will dislodge the parasite. 

DIARRHOEA OR ENTERITIS. 

Feathering out is a very trying period in the life of a chick, cor- 
responding to teething in the life of a child. There is a double tax 



74 



upon the chick's system: the ordinary demands of growth must be 
met, and the little body must be covered with feathers. It is a 
time when even the most careful poultryman must expect some 
fatalities, and the careless or lazy poultryman must not be surprised 
to sec his flock melt away like snow before the sun in springtime. 
When the poultryman goes to Feed his chicks he notices one or Two. 
perhaps more, standing around in a listless, dejected way, wings 
drooping or outspread, with possibly a white threadlike substance 
which lias just exuded from the bowels, clinging to the fluff around 
the vent. The chick may throw up its head and gape. In a few hours 
it will he dead. Its digestive system is deranged, and it i< suffering 
from what is known as Diarrhoea or Enteritis. 

It is better, far better, to avoid this disease than to attempt to 
cure it. The poultryman should realize what a critical period 
feathering out is, and strive to meet it. Especially should he be 
careful about what he feeds his chicks, making no sudden changes 
in their bill of fare. Nor should he let them become chilled or get 
drenched in a shower. If. in spite of all precautions, chicken 
cholera makes its appearance, the house and brooders should be 
thoroughly cleaned, all drinking vessels scalded, and air-slacked 
lime sprinkled lightly about. Some good remedies are as follows: 
"Boiled rice upon which has been sprinkled a little cinnamon. 
lime water to drink, boiled milk and dry bran." In mild eases add 
one or two (hams of sulphate of iron to a pint of drinking water. 
In very serious cases where the diarrhoea is accompanied by pain, 
fever or bloody discharges, give 1-8 grain powdered opium and two 
grains subnitrate of bismuth every four hours. 

COLDS AND BROXCHITIS. 

fowls aie very susceptible to colds. The reason is. 1 suppose, 
that they are subjected to great changes of temperature. Poultry 
houses are so built that the sun shines full upon them, and at mid- 
day even in winter the interior is often very warm. It is generally 
when the temperature is highest that the fowls are working the 
hardest. The conditions are analogous to what they would be 
were a man obliged to wear a heavy fur coat all the time night and 
day and exercise in a room where the mercury was ai 70 degrees, 
and then sleep in a room where it fell below zero. Such extremes 
would affect the hardiest constitution. Colds would not be nearly 
so common if poultry keepers would open the windows in their 
houses every day in winter when the sun shines, and keep them 
open from 11 o'clock in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. 



75 



The symptoms of a cold are sneezing, bubbling ai the nose, 
water}" eve and perhaps diarrhoea. Colds generally cure them 
selves withoul any especial treatment, but there is always a possi- 
bility that colds if neglected may run into something serious. Ten 
drops of aconite in two quarts of drinking water is a simple and 
good remedy when administered in season. For mature birds a 
one-grain quinine pill or one Laxative Bromo Quinine Tablet, 
given each night for two or three nights, will generally do the busi- 
ness. The tablet should he greased, so that it will slip down easily. 
Here is a home-made pill that is effective: Take equal parts 
cayenne pepper, sulphate of quinine and sulphate of iron — mix to- 
gether with extract gentian: mould into pellets a I unit the size of a 
pea, and give one every 24 hours. (This is not a bad remedy for 
human beings, doubling or trebling the dose). Bronchitis is a bad 
eold accompanied by coughing or rattling in the throat. The 
treatment is the same as for a common cold. 

THE DEE AD SCODRCK— ROUP. 

Roup is now believed to be a bacterial disease — that is. dissem- 
inated by means of germs — and not as was formerly thought the 
result of a neglected eold. If this is so, roup can only be intro- 
duced from outside: it cannot originate within. But it can be in- 
troduced in many ways: by means of a bird bought of a careless or 
irresponsible breeder, by means of excrement brought on the feet, 
by means of germs or spores floating in the air. The seeds of roup 
will remain for years, so that it is never safe to buy an old hen 
house, unless you are absolutely sure the disease has never been 
within its walls. Catarrh is often mistaken for roup, but in 
catarrh the peculiar smell that goes with roup is not present. 

Each new case as it comes up) should be isolated. Roup may 
be discovered in two ways. A roupy bird generally sleeps with her 
head under her wing, and by going through the pen at night with 
a lantern one may easily find her. The other way in which a 
roupy bird may he told i- by a slight moisture in the lower corner 
of her eye, or perhaps little bubbles there. In well developed cases 
there is a roup smell that once known can never be mistaken. All 
suspects should be quarantined, fed lightly on a warm mash in 
which there is little ginger, and given their drinking water in dis- 
infected vessels. Two or three times a day spray their nostrils and 
mouths with the following solution: Extract witch hazel, four 
tablcspoonfuls; water, two tablespoonfuls: carbolic acid, three 



76 



drops. Use an atomizer, and squeeze the bulb five times for each 
nostril and twice for the mouth. The bird will often recover un- 
der tin's treatment. 

THE KEROSENE TREATMENT FOR ROUP. 

Tt is a question whether it pays to doctor a severe case of the 
roup. Even if the bird lives she will be worthless as a breeder, 
and it will be some time before she comes into shape to lay again. 
A sharp hatchet is about the best cure for roup that I know of. 
Still, if you want to give the bird a chance, try the kerosene treat- 
ment — in my judgment, the simplest and best treatment known. 
Take a wooden pail and fill it two-thirds full of water, and then 
pour on one-half cupful of oil. Take bird by the feet and dip her 
head under water, letting it stay there while you count three. 
Wipe the bird well with a piece of soft cloth, and return to the 
hospital. Some of the kerosene will percolate through the outer 
skin, and some will be taken into the bird's mouth as she tries to 
clean up her feathers. The kerosene uniting with the pus coag- 
ulates it, and in a few days the mass scales off, leaving the tongue 
pink and clean. The patient is still weak, and should be kept in 
the hospital a while longer before she is returned to her mates. 

The best diet in roup is bread moistened with milk. The throat 
is so tender that hard food cannot be swallowed. I had a roupy 
bird that I had kerosened. She seemed to be doing well, but had 
no appetite. I tried to tempt her with warm mash, but to no 
avail. I put her out doors to see if the warm sunshine would not 
hasten her cure. Soon I noticed her about the sink spout picking 
up the crumbs that ran down when my wife washed the dishes. I 
took the hint and gave her bread soaked in milk. She ate heartily 
and made a fine recovery. 

I would advise the poultryman to keep some standard roup 
remedy on hand, and when the disease breaks out to use the medi- 
cine according to directions. In purchasing a remedy select one 
that can lie administered in the food or water, and do not bother 
with pills or powders that you have to give to the individual bird. 

CHOLERA. 

Next to roup the most serious disease that the poultryman is 
called upon to combat is cholera. Cholera would be even more 
serious than roup were it as common. It is a disease of damp, hot 
weather, and disappears quickly in a dry time or upon the ap- 



77 

proach of frost. Like roup cholera is transmitted by means of 
'germs, and it affects not only the domestic fowls hut some of the 
wild hirds as well. 

Approach of cholera is generally heralded by loss of apnetite 
on the part of the birds in a flock. The first definite symptom is 
discoloration of tbe urates, or the tip of the excrement; in health 
the urates are white, but in cholera the urates are at first yellow, 
changing - as the disease progresses to green. Diarrhoea sets in. 
The bird separates itself from the rest, stands in a dejected atti- 
tude with roughened plumage, and seems asleep. The crop is ex- 
tremely thirsty. Great weakness follows, and in a short time the 
bird dies. 

No satisfactory remedy for cholera has been discovered. Re- 
move the infected birds to a place by themselves, and when one dies 
burn the body or bury it so deep that dogs or foxes cannot dig it 
np. Thoroughly clean up the house and yards, and bury the excre- 
ment. Sprinkle the floor and yards with a solution made of one 
pint carbolic acid and three gallons warm water, applied with a 
common watering pot. 

DISEASES OE THE LIVER. 

Nine-tenths of the diseases that afflict laying stock come' from 
derangements of the digestive organs and of the liver. In order 
to get eggs it is necessary to feed highly, and this reacts upon the 
health. The poultryman must expect every now and then to lose 
a hen. Fortunately the value of the individual hen is not great, 
and he must not be disheartened if he finds one dead from time to 
time. When hens begin to drop off — as they will in the spring — 
the poultryman must immediately begin to revise his methods. 
He must feed a less stimulating ration, give more green food, and 
compel his hens to take exercise. A teaspoonful of sulphate mag- 
nesia to each pint drinking water, given for a week, then followed 
for a month by adding one-fourth grain sulphate strychjnia to two 
quarts water, is a good tonic. AVhere the liver is affected, as will 
be shown by the color of the comb — purple, becoming dark and 
even black — give a teaspoonful of castor oil once a day, instead of 
the sulphate of magnesia and strychnia. 

CROP BOUND. 

This condition is sufficiently described by the name. The bird 
mopes around, dejected in appearance, and upon examination her 



78 



crop feels as if sin 1 had swallowed a base ball. (Jive her a table- 
spoonful of castor oil and put her in a pen by herself for 12 hours, 
when the mass may pass away. If it does not it will he necessary 
to operate. You will need someone to as-ist yon. With a sharp 
knife make a longitudinal incision three-quarters of an inch in 
length in the upper part of the crop, first plucking out any feathers 
that may he in the way. Take a small hardwood skewer, such as 
butchers use. and begin to remove the contents of the crop. It will 
take some time. To make sure that everything has been removed 
and that there is no obstruction insert your little finger into the 
outlet of the crop, where the food passes into the gizzard. Rinse 
out the crop with warm water. Sew up the opening in the crop 
with silk thread, making each stitch by itself, tving and cutting 
the thread before making another. Po the same thino- to the out- 
side skin. Put the bird hack in the pen by herself, and feed 
lightly on soft food for a few days. 

SCALY LEGS. 

"Scaly legs are the work of a minute parasite, and the trouble 
is contagious. There are quite a number of remedies, but more 
depends upon care for a few weeks than anything else. Take 
three tablespoonfuls of lard and add to it two tablespoonfuls of 
kerosene oil and one of glycerine; then drop into the mixture 
(which should be mixed warm, not hot) two drops of carbolic acid. 
Wash the legs of the fowl and wipe dry, rub on the mixture very 
thickly, having it warm, not overlooking any part. Repeat this 
twice a week for two or three weeks and the legs will soon become 
clean and perfectly smooth." 

A GOOD TONIC. 

There are times when a good tonic is of great value in the 
poultry yard. After a long, cold winter or when disease makes it > 
appearance and it is desirable to reinforce the health of the fowls, 
a good tonic should be given. Douglas Mixture is one of the best, 
and is used by poultrymen even-where. Tt is made a- follows: 

Sulphate of iron, 8 oz. 

Sulphjuric acid, |- oz. 

Water, 1 gal. 

Put into a bottle or jug one gallon water, add the sulphate of 
iron: as soon as the iron is dissolved add the acid. When the mix- 



79 

"hire is clear it is ready for use. Dose, a tablespoonful to every 
quart of drinking water. The drinking vessels while using this 
tonic, in ust he glass or glazed earthenware. 

MOULTING. 

Moulting is not a disease, in the sense thai it is something ab- 
normal or unnatural: hut it is a disease in the sense that it is a 
state of discomfort or dis-ease. For best results in vgg production 
"birds should be helped through the moult, and the time should he 
made as brief as possible. 

Remove all males from the flock as soon as moulting begins, 
■for it is best for both the males and females to be separated at this 
"time. Feed about as usual, only be sure that plenty of meat or 
green ground bone is given in the daily ration, and that plenty of 
■green food is always at hand. Three times a week in dry, bright 
weather put a tablespoonful of flowers of sulphur in the mash for 
■every 50 fowls, and on alternate days a tablespoonful of carbonate 
■ of iron. Do not give the carbonate of iron to white fowls, for it 
will give the feathers a creamy or brassy tinge. If this treatment 
"is kept up during the entire moult the birds will get through 
•easily, as there will he no loss of strength, nor will any of them 
.hang in the moult, but keep on until completed. 

EGG EATING: HOW TO PREVENT IT. 

Egg eating is a vice that is much easier to prevent than to cure. 
"Where the eggs are gathered at frequent intervals, where the hens 
are supplied with plenty of material for making shells, where the 
"hens are kept busy when not on the nests, egg eating is practically 
unknown. 

The only sure cure for egg eating is the hatchet. Before this 
is applied, however, an effort should be made to stop the vice. Two 
or more china eggs should be placed in each nest, and plenty of 
these eggs strewn in the litter upon the floor. Then pare the 
upper beak of the guilty bird until it shows v signs of bleeding, so 
that when she strikes at the china eggs the pain will make her 
stop. Generally this will effect a cure. Something can be done 
by having the nests in a dark place and so arranged that it is dif- 
ficult for the hen to get at the egg after she has laid. A nail keg 
makes an excellent nest for egg-eating hens. I have known men 
to make a double-decked nest, so that the egg after being laid 



80 



would drop through a small hole into the receptacle below. Raw 
salt pork, chopped line, is recommended for egg-eating hens; but 
the best thing is never to allow them to contract the habit. 

Mr. S. D. Fox. to whom I have several times referred, has a 
method of breaking hens of egg eating as novel as it is efficacious. 
"My bens got to eating eggs one spring," he says, ''and I went to 
work to cure them. I got an egg. chipped off one end and took 
out tbe yolk and white. Then I filled up the egg with soft soap, 
sprinkled in a good stiff dose of cayenne pepper, stuck on the end 
with white court plaster, and dropped the egg on the hen house 
floor. They ate that egg. Tbe next day I gave 'em another. 
They ate that. The next day I gave 'em a third. They didn't 
eat that, and they never ate another so far as I know. Didn't like 
the flavor, I guess. Hurt 'em? Wall, no, I never see that it did. 
Might have deaned 'em out a little — soft soap is good for that, yon 
know — but it didn't rumple a feather, so far as I could see.'" 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Products and By-Product*. 



Producing the eggs and rearing the chicks form but ;i part, and 
perhaps the smallest part, of the poultryman's business. In order 
to make money he must market the product to the best advantage- 
It is here, I am convinced, that the majority of poultrymen fail. 
They are not good business men. They work hard enough, but do 
not calculate closely and do not sell at the right time or at the 
right place. In these days when competition is so close and the 
margin for profit so narrow, the difference between profit and loss 
in the poultry business may consist in the maimer in which the 
product is put on the market. 

The man who keeps but a few hens and does not make poultry 
raising his principal occupation, will probably do better to sell his 
eggs and poultry to his regular grocer than to hunt up private cus- 
tomers. It is true that he may receive a cent or two a dozen more 
if he sells at houses, but this is more than offset by the loss in 
time. The grocer is not so particular about his eggs, so long as 
they are fresh, as is the private customer, and will take eggs of all 
sizes and color-. It is true he does not wish to pay in cash, but the 
profit on his goods is about the only profit he makes on the trans 
action; for the grocer is often compelled to sell eggs for just whal 
ho -rive for them. The grocers are the great buyers of eggs 
throughout the land. 

The man who keeps hens on a larger scale, and who wants to 
make the most out of the business with the least trouble, will do 
well to make an arrangement with a city grocer to ship him a eer- 
tain number of cases each week throughout the year. The poultry- 
man should go to the city and see the grocer personally. The 
chances are he will get an order. This is far more profitable than 
selling 10 the local grocer. In the town where I live I have seldom 
known eggs to go above 30 cents a dozen, and they remain at this 
figure but a short time, while in the cities to the south of us they 
sometimes sell as high as 45 or 50 cents. 

The poultryman who produces a gilt-edged product can often 
market to private customers to advantage. The hotels will take 



82 



a limited number of fano\ fresh eggs. They do not take so man; 
a- one would think, because in cooking they use cold storage eggs. 
Clubs arc good customers, and will pay a fancy price for a fancy 
article. Druggists use a Large number of brown eggs in connection 
with their soda trade and will often pay a good price for fresh 
eggs of good color. There are private families that will gladly pay 
the poultryman the same price they have to pay for eggs at tne 
store, and pay in cash. The advantage of having private cus- 
t( mers is, that one can sell them beside eggs, poultry, vegetables, 
ci earn, berries and other products of the farm and garden. 

PRESERVING EGGS. 

There is always a time in spring when eggs are very cheap. 
The poultryman can add to his profits and at the same time relieve 
the congestion in the market by improving this opportunity to lay 
down a supply of eggs for home consumption Tor the year to come. 
I do not believe in sidling these preserved eggs for fresh eggs, but 
there is no reason why the poultryman should not use them in bis 
own family. Neither is there any objection to selling them in the 
fall, provided the\ are sold for just what they are — preserved eggs 
and not fresh eggs. I know a man who every spring when eggs 
are cheap lays down LOO dozen, and then about Thanksgiving sells 
them for a little less per dozen than is asked for the best freshieggs, 
clearing up about $60 by the deal. A profit of 150 per cent, in six 
months leaves Wad Street out of sight. There are two absolutely 
sure methods o\' keeping eggs, both of which I print. These meth- 
ods are the soluble glass and the lime water method-. Of the two 
I pr< fer the soluble glass, as cleaner and more convenient. Bear 
in mind, however, that no method under the sun will keep eggs 
fresh which are not fresh when laid down! 

LIME WATER METHOD. 

Slack four pounds lime, and then add four pounds salt, stirring 
well together. Add eight gallons water. Stir and leave to settle 
Thie next day stir again. After the mixture has settled the second 
time draw off or carefully dip out the clear liquid. Take two 
ounces each of baking soda, cream of tartar, saltpetre, and a little 
alum. Pulverize and mix. and dissolve in two quarts boiling water. 
Add this to the lime water. Put the eggs in a stone jar. small end 
down, one layer on top of another, and pour on the solution. Set 
tin jar away in a cool place. This process has been secret in the 



83 



past, .-nul the recipe has been widely sold for $5. The method is 
quite satisfactory, although, no1 so good as the method of preserv- 
ing in soluble glass, as the eggs are liable to have a somewhat limy 
taste. 

SOLUBLE GLASS METHOD. 
Soluble glass, or sodium silicate, is a liquid of a rather smooth, 

slippery consistency, readily soluble in water. It is u^a\ by physi- 
cians for coating bandages, where it is desired to protect the injured 
part from the air, and may be obtained through any druggist at a 
cost of about ?'5 cents a gallon. For preserving eggs use one part 
soluble glass to about 10 parts pure water. Put the eggs in a stone 
jar, small end down, one layer on top of another until the jar is 
filled, then pour on the solution. If the specific gravity of tin 
solution is greater than that of the eogs, a- is sometimes the case, 
add water until the eggs will just sink 

SALICYLIC ACID A .VI) COLD STOEAGE. 
The West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station has been 
studying methods of preserving eggs, and finds that the treatment 
with salicylic acid followed by cold storage is quite efficacious. 
The station does not claim that the method has passed the experi- 
mental stage, and does not advise anyone to use it except in an 
experimental way. It is worth trying, and is as follows: "Sub- 
merge the fresh eggs for 5 or 10 minutes in a solution of one 
ounce of salicylic acid in one quart of strong alcohol, and imme- 
diately on removing the eggs from the solution, and while they are 
still wet, wrap them in sterilized cotton and store in a box or barrel 
in a dry room, the temperature of which does not go above (>0 de- 
crees Fahrenheit." 

WOOD ASHES OH SALT. 
There are many, however, who desire a simpler method than 
any of these described, and to such 1 would recommend either wood 
ashes or salt. Wood ashes are excellent. Experiments conducted 
by the National Agricultural School in Germany show that eggs 
may be kept a year packed in wood ashes, with a loss of only '20 
per cent. Wood ashes are cleanly, convenient and always at hand. 
Salt also is good. Use a grade of salt a little coarser than table 
salt — what is called coarse-fine salt. Pack the eggs in a stone jar. 
Put in first a layer of salt, then a layer of eggs, and so on until the 
jar is filled. Stand the eggs upon the small ends, and do not let 
them touch. Cover them completely with salt. Set the jar in a 



84 



cool place. I have known eggs packed in this way' to keep a year, 
and to be as good at the end of that time for cooking as if laid hut 
a few days before. 
• POULTRY MANURE— A \ ALU ABLE BY-PRODUCT. 

Poultry manure is an exceedingly valuable by-product. It is a 
highly stimulating manure. It is also a rich plant food. Poultry 
manure is more than twice as valuable as sheep or hog manure, and 
more than three times as valuable as ordinary stable manure, as the 
following table will show: 



CC "3_ O r^ C 

Per cent. Per cent. Per cent- 
Sheep 0.768 0.391 0.591 $3.30 

Pigs 0.840 0.390 0.320 3.29 

Cows 0.426 0.290 0.440 2.02 

Horses 0.490 0.260 0.480 2.21 

Poultry Manure .... 0.800 to O.500 to 0.800 to 7.07 

2.000 2.000 0.900 

Poultry manure is so powerful that great care must be taken in 
applying it. It should never be allowed to come into direct con- 
tact with the roots of the growing plant. When applied in the hill 
it should be well mixed with the soil. 

Poultry manure supplies nitrogen in large quantities in the 
form of ammonia, but ammonia being a highly volatile product is 
rapidly dissipated. The problem of the poultrvmen, therefore, in 
dealing with ben manure is to find some substance that will fix 
the ammonia. Sifted earth is not good, for it is apt to contain 

eria which art destructively on the ammonia compounds. 
WOod ashes are worse than nothing, for they do not hold ammonia, 
but drive it off by their caustic alkaline properties. 

The best thing I have found to preserve the ammonia in hen 
manure is gypsum or land plaster, which may be bought for 50 
cents per 100 pounds. Scatter a few handfuls of plaster over the 
droppings before you remove them in the morning, and see that 
it is thoroughly incorporated. The result is a compound as valu- 
as any commercial fertilizer. The droppings from a fowl in 
one year, when treated in this way, are worth one-half what it costs 
to feed her. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



The End of the Two Hundred Egg Hen. 

The poultryman who keeps from 300 to 500 head of laying 
stock will have a good deal of poultry to dispose of, especially if 
he follows my advice in this book to keep pullets, principally, for 
layers. It will be quite a problem to dispose of this stock to the 
best advantage. In passing I would remark that the poultryman 
should keep his own table well supplied. Plump and juicy broilers 
and roasters are just as good for him as they are for any one else. 
There is no reason why the poultrymams table should not rejoice 
once a week with broilers or roasters. During the summer there 
is in most towns a good market for poultry. The poultryman 
should steadily cull from his flock, and about moulting time have 
a grand "round up," selling the fowls for what they will bring — ■ 
except those he wishes to keep over for breeders. Quite a number 
of live cockerels may be disposed of among the farmers in the fall 
if the poultryman keeps a popular breed and will sell for a fair 
price. 

KILLING AND DRESSING FOWLS FOR MARKET. 

1. Take the bird from the roost at night, 36 hours before it is 
to be killed, and shut it up in comfortable quarters. The next 
morning give it a good breakfast, but nothing more to eat after 
this until it is killed. Let it have all the water it will drink. The 
water -will add greatly to the fowl's comfort and assist in evacu- 
ating the bowels. The confinement is for the purpose of having 
the fowl at hand and of emptying the crop. 

2. Suspend the fowl by the feet at a convenient height with 
a soft cord, the upper end of which is secured to a hook or nail in 
the ceiling or beam over head. 

3. Lock the wings together behind the back, to prevent flap- 
pi ug. Do this carefully, so that they will not be dislocated. 

1. Take the tip of the wings in the left hand, and with the 
right strike the fowl a smart blow on the head with a stick or 
cudgel. Strike hard enough to produce concussion of the brain 
and unconsciousness. 

5. Grasp the fowl by the comb or by the feathers at the back 
of the head with the left hand, and with the right insert the blade 



86 



of a sharp knife in the neck jusi back <>! the ear lobe, on the under 
side of the neck bone and parallel with it. Run the blade clear 
through the neck. When you withdraw the blade twist it to right 
angles with the neck bone, severing the artery in the throat, and 
causing the blood to flow profusely. 

6. Begin to pluck immediately. Pluck up the breast and side- 
to tail. Remove tail feathers. Unlock the wings, and strip them 
of long feat hers. Remove feathers from around vent. Pluck the 
feathers from back. Finish plucking. U' done quickly the 
feathers will come out easily and the .-kin will not be torn. 'I be 
bird should be entirely denuded of feathers in lt» minutes. In 
case rents are made sew them up neatly with white thread. 

7. If the fowl is to l>e drawn, with a sharp knife cut a slit 
about an inch long back of the vent and parallel with it, through 
which insert index linger, hooking it into the intestines. Remove 
intestines. The lower end of the intestines and the egg sac may 
be removed by enlarging the slit in the shape of a half circle, until 
it joins the ends of the vent. This will make a round hole about 
the size of a silver half dollar. After removing the intestines cut 
off the fowl's head, then draw back the skin and take oil' about an 
inch of the nee!; bone, pull the skin forward and tie. 

8. "For the Boston and New England markets the poultry 
should be picked perfectly clean. For the New York markets the 
tip feathers of the wings are left on. Do trot singe the bodies for 
the purpose of removing any down or hair, as the heat from the 
flame will give them an oily and unsightly appearance." 

!J. "Plumping is recommended by some dealers, and consists 
in dipping the carcass as soon as thoroughly picked lor Id seconds 
in water nearly or quite boiling hot. and then immediately into ice- 
cold water." This makes the meat look plump and tat. consider- 
ably improving its appearance. 

10. "The laws of Massachusetts and New York do not require 
poultry to he drawn. In the former State, however, the crop musl 
be drawn if there is food in it at the time of killing. Custom,, 
which is quite as potent as statute law, requires that poultry mar- 
keted in .Massachusetts be drawn, and carefully drawn poultry will 
sell so much more readily and for so much better price- that it 
pays well to comply with this demand." 

TO SCALD A FOWL. 

Where the fowl is to he eaten at home. <>r where it is sold lor 
immediate consumption, many prefer to remove the feathers by 



87 



scalding. There is a righd and a wrong war to do this. The right 
way is as follows: Kill in the manner described in preceding sec- 
tion. After the blood has stopped dripping from the wound take 
a wooden pail, or some other receptacle, fill it three-fourths full <>f 
boiling Mater, and into this pour a pint of cold water to reduce the 
temperature a little below the boiling jpoint. Take the fowl by the 
neck and legs and dip it into the water twice — once w ith the breast 
downward and once with the hack — getting it in and out of the 
water as quickly as possible. Hang the fowl \\\) again, and begin 
to pluck. When the feathers have been removed and the intestines 
drawn, dip out two quarts of water from the pail, putting two 
quarts of boiling water in its place. Put the carcass into this, and 
let it stay 10 seconds, then take it out and put it in water nearly 
if not quite ice cold, letting it stay 10 minutes. This, as has been 
explained, is "plumping,"" and gives the carcass a very plump and 
inviting appearance. Put a tahlespoonful of salt into the cold 
water at the same time the fowl is put in. Hang up the fowl in a 
cool place until it is to be cooked or sold. Fowls treated in this 
way present an excellent appearance, and will keep several days 
without discoloration. 

PACKING AND SHIPPING. 

"Carefully sew up all rents or torn places on the skin, wash 
clean in cool water, wipe dry and hang in a cool place until the 
animal heat is entirely out, before packing. Pack in clean barrels 
or boxes with clean straw, as follows: First a thin layer of straw 
and then a layer of poultry in the same posture in which they roost, 
then a layer of straw and another of poultry, and so on until the 
barrel or box is quite full, finishing with a layer of straw, which 
should be tucked firmly into any crevices in the sides. Nail the 
comers or head on securely, and mark carefully with the name and 
addi ess of the dealer to whom you ship, not forgetting your name 
and address as shipper, and notify the dealer by postal or letter 
that you have shipped him one or more boxes or barrels of dressed 
poultry by freight or express, as the ease may be. Always take a 
receipt from the freight or express agent, and ship so as to reach 
the market not later than Friday.'* 

SHIPPING FOWLS ALIVE. 

The great majority of fowls that are sent to market are shipped 
alive. Commission men prefer them in this way. They can kill 



88 



them m lots as desired, and can dress them to suit the fancy or 
caprice of their customers. The Jews, who are now a large and 
important element in our cities, will not eat fowls, unless they are 
killed by a rabbi, and this makes a constant demand for live poul- 
try. Fowls are generally shipped by express in old strawberry 
crates or small light boxes of some sort. Before being sent off 
they should be given all the whole corn they will eat and be 
watered. Commission men are continually sending out circulars 
soliciting shipments. Some of these men are reliable and some 
are not. In general it may be said that it is safe to make consign- 
ments to firms that occupy stalls in public markets or who have 
heen in business a term of years. Men who have their offices or 
places of business in obscure quarters or who have lately started 
should be investigated. If they are all right the investigation will 
<lo them no harm, and if they are not all right it may save the 
shipper a loss he can ill afford. 



LofC. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Salad and Dressing. 



Never get too old to learn. 

About as many failures in the poultry business come from 
keeping 100 fowls where there is room for only 25, as from any 
other source. 

Sitting hens should not he allowed to dust in coal ashes, as the 
fine particles clog the pores in the egg shells. Dry earth is the 
best stuff for a sitting hen to dust in. 

Kainit may he substituted for plaster to mix the manure in 
case a manure particularly rich in potash is wanted, and acid phos- 
phate may he substituted for a rich phosphatic manure. 

It is a good plan for a poultryman to keep a few standard rem- 
edies on hand all the time. Then if disease comes down upon him 
like the wolf on the fold he is in a measure prepared to meet it. 

Lice multiply upon a sick fowl, because its vitality is so depleted 
that it cannot keep itself clean. Accordingly, when you remove a 
sick fowl to the hospital for treatment give it a good dusting with 
insect powder before you administer the medicine. 

Introduce new blood from time to time, but do not introduce 
it indiscriminately. Find a man who is working along the same 
lines with }rourself, and get your males from him. Breed in two 
years, and the third year send away to the same man for more 
males. 

Green ground bone is a grand food for fowls, but it must be 
fresh and not fed in too great quantity. A correspondent writes 
that she lost 77 out of a flock of 94 beautiful chicks in three weeks 
by feeding ground -bone that she bought of a local dealer. Prob- 
ably the bone was tainted, or she fed too much. 

Rats. — Rats are naturally granivorous, and prefer corn to any- 
thing else. The poultryman should take advantage of this fact. 
Let him scatter a handful of whole corn about each rat hole, and 
the rat will not molest 'the chicks. It may seem rather expensive 
to feed rats corn, but it is not so expensive as it is to feed them on 
chicken meat. The poultryman should keep his eye peeled and 
his traps set for the rascals at the same time. 



90 



Eggs for Hatching. — How long ma\ egg$ for hatching safely be 
kept? To find out, go and ask the old hen thai has stolen her 
nest. She will tell you that she has been hiding away eggs in the 
haymow or under the barn for at leasi three week-, and that she 
expects every egg to hatch a chick. In a temperature of from 1<» 
to 60 degrees, eggs may safely be kept at least three week- before 
they are put in an incubator or under a hen. They should be 
hn tied every day. 

Medium-Sized Fowl Called For. — The market now calls for a 
medium-sized fowl. There was a time when the demand was for 
•'old hoosiers," but that day has gone forever. 1 will tell you why. 
A bird dressing ten pounds has no more legs or wings than a bird 
dressing four or five. In the case of a large fowl part of the meat 
is left uneaten on the plate. In the rase of a medium-sized fowl, 
a leg or wing is just right for an order. Shrewd buyers have 
learned that it is more profitable to buy two medium-sized fowls 
than one large one. 'I lure is still an occasional call for a large 
fowl, but the smaller ones are the better sellers. 

Be Gentle — Be gentle with your birds. The hen is naturally 
timid and easily sealed. When kindly treated, however, she be- 
comes tame. Much of the pleasure in keeping fowls comes from 
having them so tame that they will let their owner work among 
them and even handle them at his will. One should never lose his 
temper, no matter how great the provocation. The hen is not a 
reasoning creature and often sorely tries her owners patience. But 
if he never allows himself to get angry or treat her unkindly no 
matter what she may do, poultry keeping becomes not only a source 
of pleasure and profit but a means of moral discipline not to be 
despised. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," 
is a beatitude as true in the poultry business as it is elsewhere. 

Precocious pullets seldom make phenomenal layers. 

Dry planer shavings make the best material for nest.-. 

Select a breed of fowl as you do a wife — to please yourself. 

Don"! go into the poultry business unless you have a "call" 
to it. 

There is little danger of overfeeding hens after they begin to 
lay. 

Clear poultry manure, lightly sprinkled with coal ashes or land 
plaster to fix the ammonia is worth a dollar a barrel. 

If your method of feeding gives good results don't change it 
because you happen to read of someone else who feeds differently. 



The fool knows it all to begin with. The wise man learns 
by his experience. The wisest man learns by his experience and 
the expei ience of others. 

Read this book over time and again until you have thoroughly 
assimilated it. The closer you follow its teachings the more dol- 
lars you will make. 

To get rid of the neighbor's cat, explode a torpedo under tier 
tail whenever she comes around. This will scare the cat, but do 
her no permanenl harm. The neighbor will appreciate the joke, 
and you will get rid of the cat and keep your neighbor's good will 
at the same time. 

After a hen has laid an egg she cackles. Go and do thou like- 
wise! If your birds have taken a prize at the county fair, cackle. 
If they have made a big egg recordj cackle. It' you have some 
fine stock to sell, cackle. In these days publicity and prosperity go 
together. 

Does it pay to caponize? About this, as about everything eke. 
there is a difference of opinion. It takes so long to bring a capon 
to maturity that the gain in size is offset by the extra cost for food, 
to say nothing of the care. Unless you have a special market, bet- 
ter not bother with capons. 

If you are in the business for egg-, and egg- alone, the sooner 
you get rid of your surplus "crowers" the better. I know a man 
who disposes of his cockerels, a- soon as he can distinguish them 
from the pullets, for 10 cents each. He claims he is better oh to 
sell them for this sum than to keep them. 

Some think the shape of the egg determines the sex of the 
chick that is to be hatched. This is a mistake. The shape of the 
egg has no effeci upon the sex of the germ it contains. A more 
plausible theory is that the shape of the egg will influence the 
shape of the chick that lie-ins its life in it— a Long egg giving a 
long, rangey chick, ami a short, round egg a more blocky chick. 
This is worth investigating. 

Don't be in too much of a hurry to have your chick- begin to 
roost. Tut the roost in their house one foot from the floor and let 
them find out what it is there for themselves. Some adventurous 
chick will discover it after a while and get upon it: others will fol- 
low, and after a few weeks the whole flock will he roosting at night. 
Should there be any laggards drive them about with the soft end 
of the broom one or two nights until they are glad to get on the 
roost with the rest. 



92 



The worsl feature of the poultry business is its slavery. The 
poultryman must he on deck 365 days in a year, and in leap years 
366. Sundays and holidays bring little relief, for the stock must 
be fed and watered, the eggs collected, and the chicks and sitting 
hens looked after as well as at other times. On small plants it is 
difficult to get a man to step in for a few days, who will not 
demoralize the whole thing. No man should go into the poultry 
business who does not have a real love for it; otherwise the monot- 
ony and slavery will become intolerable. 

What rewards may a well-equipped poultryman expect? Not 
a fortune. You can count on your fingers, almost, the men who 
have made fortunes in the poultry business. And these men have 
made their money by selling birds and eggs to breeders rather than 
by catering to the regular trade. But a careful, industrious man, 
one who has a real liking for the work and has gone into it intelli- 
gently, may reasonably expect a good living, a pleasant home, 
health, and the independence that comes from being one's own 
master. 

Novel Way to Break Up a Hen. — After you have tried every 
other method you can think of to break up a hen, without avail, 
just tie a piece of red string or tape to her tail. Tie it so that 
there will be two loose ends, each about six inches long, to flutter 
behind. The hen will at once lose all interest in a sedentary life, 
and will start out of the house as if she was going to a fire. She 
wdl run until she is tired out. when she will stop; then she will start 
in and after a short rest run again. When night comes you will 
find her on the roost, cured. Take the ribbon off her tail, if she 
has not got it off herself. This may seem an heroic method, but as 
Shakspeare observes: 

"Disease desperate grown 

By desperate appliance are relieved, 

Or not at all." 

Economy, Practicability. — In preparing this book I have been 
governed by two considerations: economy, practicability. By 
economy I mean not only frugality in the use of money, but also 
frugality in the use of time. 1 am aware that the great majority 
of those who keep fowls are not able to devote their whole time to 
the business, but must combine poultry keeping with other pur- 
suits. I have had this class in mind in writing this book, and have 
endeavored to show how the maximum of profit may be obtained 
with the minimum of effort. Every statement in the book has 



93 



been tested by actual experience, and may be relied upon implicitly. 
I expect to learn as long as 1 live and to modify details from time 
to time, but never expect to depart radically from the principles 
laid down in these pages. 

To Dust a Her.. — With your left hand grasp the h.en by the legs, 
and lay her breast down upon a newspaper. The powder should 
be in a tin box with a handle and a perforated cover. Sprinkle the 
powder into the feathers around the vent, rubbing it in well. 
Work the powder into the feathers about the neck. Work the 
powder into the feathers on the sides and under the wings. Le1 
the hen stand a moment, keeping your hands lightly around her so 
that she cannot get away. Eeturn her to the roost and take an- 
other. After going through the pen shake the powder that has 
fallen on the newspaper into the can or package. One application 
kills the lice that are on the hen at the time, but in a week then 
will be another brood. The best poultrymen recommend dusting 
a hen at last three times, at intervals a week apart, and never admit- 
ting a strange hen into the pen without first dusting her thor- 
oughly. One lousy hen will contaminate all the rest, and so it is 
necessary to be on one's guard all the time. 

Causes of Disease. — The more troublesome diseases of fowls, 
with their causes, may be summed up as follows: Roup — intro- 
duced by germs. Cholera — filth and overcrowding. Diarrohea- 
damp houses, filthy houses and runs, overcrowding. Canker — 
dampness and filth. Diphtheria — roosting in draughts, also damp 
houses. Ulcerated throat — same. Consumption — neglected cold. 
Apoplexy, vertigo and epilepsy — overfeeding. Sore eyes — damp 
houses. Costiveness and constipation — improper food. Soil and 
swelled crop — overfeeding. Indigestion and dyspepsia — same. Pip 
— damp quarters. Bronchitis — same. Black rot — result of indi- 
gestion. Soft-shelled eggs — overfeeding. Gout, rheumatism and 
cramp — damp houses. Leg weakness — inbreeding and overfeeding. 
Bumble foot — high perches. Scaly legs — filth and damp quarters. 

Whitewash. — There is no better whitewash for outside work 
than that used by the United States government for public build- 
ings, which is made as follows: Take half a bushel of unslacked 
lime and slack it with boiling water, covering during the process 
to keep in steam. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or strainer, 
and add a peck of salt previously dissolved in warm water: three 
pounds of ground rice boiled to a thin paste and stirred in while 
hot; half a pound of Spanish whiting, one pound of clean glue. 



94 



Before the glue is added it should be dissolved in cold water and 
then brought to a stale where it will flow freely l>v being placed 
over a slow lire in a small pot set in a larger one — the larger po1 
being filled with water. Add live gallons hot water to the mixture, 
stir well, and let it stand a few days where no dirt can get into it. 
Apply hot. One pint of this whitewash will cover one square yard. 
Coloring matter may he added as desired. For cream color add 
yellow ochre; for pearl or lead color add lampblack or ivory black; 
for fawn color add proportionately four pounds of common lamp- 
black: for common stone color add proportionately four pounds of 
iaw umber to two pounds lampblack. 

A Field Near Home. — The man who does not have the capital 
to engage in the business on a huge scale, or who does not feel com- 
petent to compete with breeders of established reputation, may 
largely increase his profits by imitating their methods within a lim- 
ited area. Farmers are waking up to the importance of keening 
thoroughbred stock. The average farmer does not feel that he can 
afford to pay $2 or even $1 for a sitting of eggs, hut he will gladly 
pay 50 emit-, 'the man who introduces a new and promising 
variety into his neighborhood, or who has a strain of any estab- 
lished breed noted lor egg production, can count on a large sale of 
eggs for hatching around home. It is more profitable to sell eggs 
to the farmers for 50 cents a sitting than to sell them for double 
that -inn to customers out of town, for in the latter case there is 
the expense for advertising and baskets, the time consumed in 
packing the eggs and in correspondence. 

How to Break Up a Sitting Hen. — Don't be in a hurry to break 
up the sitting hen. She has laid long and well and needs a vaca- 
tion before she starts in again. If it is summer put her out of the 
house and yard and let her forage for herself a few days. If it is 
winter or spring, put her in a pen built for broodies, give her a 
light feed of mash for breakfast, nothing for dinner, and the same 
for supper. Give her all the water she will drink. In a week she 
will bo cured ami come back to the (lock with a good appetite, and 
in another week she will begin to lay. 'the philosophy of this 
method is that the scanty ration makes the hen uneasy and she for- 
get- her desire for incubation. It won't hurt her to go a little 
hungry for a l\^w days, for if she is in a condition to sit she has 
stored up plenty of fat and it will do her good to consume some of 
it. It is a fact not generally known that where no nest eggs are 
\[^d and where the eggs laid are gathered two or three times a day, 



95 



hens are qo< nearly so likely to gel broody as they are when they 
feel a clutch of eggs under them every time they go on the nest. 

The two requisites of success in the poultry business are brains 
and pains. 

The poultryman who expects winter eggs from immature or 
stunted pullets is going to be badly disappointed, it requires good 
food, good care and a good, steady growth from shell to maturity to 
develop winter layers. 



A SETT1N' HEN. 



When a hen is bound to set, 
Seems as though 'tain't etiket 
Dowsin' her in water till 
She's connected with a chill. 
Seems as though 'twas skursely right 
Givin' her a dreadful fright. 
Tyin' rags around her tail. 
Poundin' on an old tin pa'l. 
Chasin' her around the yard. 
—Seems as though 'twas kinder hard 
Bein' kicked and slammed and shooed 
'Cause she wants to raise a brocd. 
I sh'd say it's gettin' gay 
Jest 'cause, natur' wants its way. 
--While ago my neighbor, Penn, 
Started bustin' up a hen; 
Went 1o yank her off the nest, 
Hen, though, made a peck and jest 
Grabbed his thumbnail good and stout, 
—Liked to yanked the darn thing out. 
Penn he twitched away and then 
Tried again to grab the hen. 
But, by ginger, she had spunk, 
'Cause she took and nipped a junk 
Big's a bean right out his palm, 
Swallowed it, and cool and calm 
Histed up and yelled "Cah-dah!" 
— Sounded like she said "Hoo-rah!" 
Wal, sir, when that hen done that. 
Penn, he bowed, took off his hit, 
— Spunk jest suits him, you can bei- 
"Set," says he, "gol da v n ye, SET." 
— Holinan F. Day in Lewiston Journal. 






1905 



INDEX 



American Breeds Best 42 

B 

Best Sexed Birds 48 

Breeding for 200 Eggs 56-6 1 

Breed from Best Birds 67 

Brooder, Care of 68 

Brooder, Install One 66 

Brooder, Removing Chicks to 67 

Brooder, Secrets of Success with 67 

Brooder Chick;?, How Author Feeds. . 68 
Brooder Cnicks, Another Man's Way . . 69 

C 

Carbohydrates 34 

Chicks and Their Care 66-71 

Chicks, Diseases of 73 

Chicks, with Hens 70 

Chicks, When to Hatch 71 

Cholera 76 

Colds and Bronchitis 74 

Colony Plan 8 

Community Plan 9 

Colony-Community Plan 12 

Crop Bound 77 

Crosses 58 

D 

Diarrhoea 73 

Diseases, Causes of 93 

Diseases, the More Common 72-80 

Drinking Water 24 

Dust Bath 22 



Egg Eating 79 

Egg Fo r ds and Tonic 43 

E^gs, Feeding for 25-33 

Eggs in Fall and Winter 41-45 

Egg Production, Conditions of 6 

Egg Records, How Wrecked 5 

Egg Type 7 

End of 200 Egg Hen 85-88 

Exercise 22 



Fats 

Feeding, a Woman's Way 

Feeding, Caution 

Feeding, Golden Rule for 

Feeding, How Much 

Feeding, Summer Method 

Feediog, Variety Necessary 

Feeding, Winter Method. 

Foods and Food Values 

G 

Grit, Charcoal and Oyster Shells. . 
Green Foo^l 



H 

Hen Persuader, Mr. Fox's 

Hereditv 

Home of 200 Egg Hen 8 



35 
32 
29 
BO 
26 
29 
28 
27 
-40 

23 

37 

44 

4 

17 



Incubation, Artificial and Natural. . 61-65 

Incubator or Hen 61 

Incubator, Get a Good One 62 



K PA<& 

Killing and Dressing 85 

L 

Leg Bands 61 

Lice an<i Red Mites. 20 

Liver, Diseases of 77 

M 

Male, Importance of 58 

Manure, Poultry 84 

Mature Birds, Breed from 58 

Moulting 79 

Montana Expeiiment Station House... 12 

N 

Natural Hen Incubator 63 

Non-Layers 6 

P 

Packing and Shipping 87 

Piano Box Houses 17 

Prize Method 01 FeediDg 43 

Proaucts and By-Products 81-85 

Preserving Eggs, Methods of 82-83- 

Pullets, to Start Laying 45 

K 

Rats 89 

Rations, Balanced, etc 36 

Reproduction, Conditions of 47 

Reproduction, Stx Element in 48 

Roup 75- 

S 

Salad and Dressing 89-95 

Sanitation in Egg Production 18-24 

Scalding Fowls 86 

Sex Element in Egg Production 46-51 

Scaly Legs 78 

Shipping Live Stock 87 

Silting Hen, Care of 64 

Sitting Hen. to Break Up.. 94 

Successful Men— How Some Feed 30 

Summer. Sanitation in 24 

Srx, Law of 49 

Sex, Selection by 48 

Sick B rds. Segregate 72 

Sickness, Beginnings of 72 

T 

Tables 39-40> 

Tes'ing Eegs 65 

Toric, A Good 78 

Thint;«to Bear in Mind 37 

Trap Nest and Its I>es 52 55 

Two Hundred Egg Htn 3-7 

V 

Varieties, How Many 5' 

Veimm, to Rid House of 21 

W 

Water Test 65 

Winter Egers fiom Pullets 41 

Winter Eggs, Feeding for 43 

Winter E>;g^. Not Fertile 60 

Whitewash, Government '..... W, 

Y 

Yard Poultry 25 



Gardner & Dunning's 
BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCKS 



Have Won More Prizes at New York 

and other large shows since 1898 

Than Any Other Strain In America. 



Over icoo fine breeding and exhibition birds for 
sale. Our catalogue and mating list, giving full descrip- 
tion of stock and method of mating, and letters from 
many pleased customers, sent on request. 



GARDNER & DUNNING, 

M. S. Gardner, Mgr. AUBURN, N. Y. 



LE.AR.N TO 

Raise Poultry 

PROFI TABLY 

IF you raise poultry, "do it right". Make it pay as 
it should. Learn to avoid costly mistakes. Con- 
duct your yard, large or small, on established, 
money-making principles. Poultry Culture can be 
made to pay bigger dividends in proportion to invest- 
ment of time and money than any other branch of 
farm industry. It offers equal opportunities to 

women and men. 

Complete success comes with thorough preparation . Our correspondence 
course of instruction will make you an expert. The lessons are sent you regularly 
to your home . The benefits are immediate. Each student is taught individually. 
You can begin any time. NOW is the 3BBT time. Our teaching is an 
unqualified success. 

We make a business of placing graduates in good paying positions. No 
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for one of them . 

Write for interesting free literature. 

COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF POULTRY CULTURE, 
box 838, Waterville, N. Y. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



002 849 579 1 * 



Cyphers Incubator Co. 

GRANT M. CURTIS, President, 
Extends Greeting and Wishes Everybody ». Happy and Prosperous 1905. 

The past year (1904) has been by far the 
most successful and progressive in the his- 
tory of this company, and we have always 
m;ide it our business to "set the pace." We 
have made many important additions to 
our line and have materially improved all 
old patterns. "Competition is the Life ot 
Trade," and for the year 1905 we Challenge 
Competition both as to Quality and Prices. 

The New Improved Thermostat and 
Regulating Device of the 1905 pattern 
Standard Cyphers Incubators, is the high- 
est type of scientific self-adjustment, 
combined with durability and practical 
working value that has ever been applied 
to an incubator. You can't make it go 
wrong. It is set right in the factory and 
stays that way. The Patented Exclusive 
Features of Cyphers Incubators, enable 
us to positively warrant and guarantee 
all Standard Cyphers, Patent-Diaphragm, 
Non -moisture, Self- ventilating and Self- 
regulating Incubators. Sold under reg- 
istered trade-mark. The following guar- 
antee backs every sale made by 
this company or any of Its authorized 
agents : 




Incubators, 
Each. 



1 QHC fl t .!ii«ft n (oa . That each and every Standard Cyphers Incuba- 
* ~ v <* V* WW* o-aticc: . tor w0 sen( j out w tfl (j satisfactory work in the 
hands of the purchaser, provided he will give it a fair trial, or it can be returned ! 
to us, witliiu niuty (90) days in good repair, less reasonable wear, and purchase * 
price will be returned 



< >»»»»«»»»» i nn 'i o mnm ^ mi rn » i mn »» im « » < »<M«» » »»«»n i imn» » «« » « « n 

gfe Cyphers Company's New Policy J*? <*"SS8£ Tk££Stt% t £ SSJS 

faithfully the interests- of its customers to the limit of its ability. It is the habit of the 
business world to enlarge Its profits to the greatest possible extent— and pocket the pro- 
ceeds ! Cyphers Incubator Company is conducting its business on a different plan. 

During (he coming season it positively will share its profits with its customers. 

A LARGE REDUCTSON Mi THE PRICE OF STANDARD CYPHERS INCUBATORS has been made pos- 
sible bv reducing "the cost of production," as the direct result of increased capital, a larger 
manufacturing plant, atid improved machinery. In keeping with our new policy we now 
offer our patrons the large saving we have accomplished, and quote the following low 
prices on our Standard Incubators for 1905 : 

Our $14— 00 Egg Size Incubator for. .$12.00. Our $39.-220 Egg Size Incubator for. .$24.00. 

OurJISO.— 120 Egg Size Incubator for. .$17.00. Our $37.-360 Egg Size Incubator f or .. $30.00. 

Our $58,— 440 BggSiee Double Decker Our $78.— 730 Egg Size Double Decker 

Incubator for $48.00. Incubator for $60.00. 

Two Special Low Priced Incuba- 
tors : Farm-Economy, 100-Egg ca- 
pacity, $10.00. Boy's Choice, 50-Egg 
capacity. $6.50. These are practi- 
cal, reliable hatchers with nothing 
cheap about them but the price. 
Two New Styles of Brooders: Storm 
King, an outdoor, brooder, two 
sizes, which sell at $6.00 and $8.00, 
holding 50 and 100 chicks respec- 
tively. Send today for Complete 
Catalogue and Guide. Please men- 
tion this book. 

CYPHERS INCVBATOR. 
COMPANY, 

Buffalo.N.Y., Court|& Wilkeson Sts. 

Chicago, 111., 3u%Fifth Ave. 

Boston, Mass., 34 Merchants Row. 

' Kansas City, Mo.. 2325 Broadway. 

New York City, 21-33 Barclay St. 

cSan Francisco. Cal. 

Storm King Outdoor Brooder. Two Sizes, 50 and 100 London, Eng., 119-155 Finsbury 
chicks, pJ.OO and $8.00 each. - Pavement. 




